Compare Django and Pyramid

Django is Python web framework that encourages rapid development. It is based model-template-view (MTV) design pattern. It follows a "batteries included" philosophy and ships with many tools that are needed by application developers such as ORM framework, admin panel, directory structure and more.

Pyramid is a web framework that is written in Python and is based on WSGI. It is minimalistic and inspired by Zope, Pylons, and Django. Before 2010, Pyramid was known as repoze.bfg.

Let's see how Django and Pyramid compare on various factors and features and which to choose when.

Django

Pyramid

Overall

Type

Type
Python all-inclusive, megaframework for building web application.
Type
Python "microframework" for building web applications.

Author

Author
Adrian Holovaty - Author of Django
Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison.

Release Date

Release Date
2005
Release Date
2008

License

License

Website

Website
Adoption and Ease of Use

Popularity [?]

Popularity [?]
5 Stars
Used by 367,000 projects.
Popularity [?]
1 Star
Used by 8,000 projects.

Used by

Used by
Instagram, Pinterest, Coursera, Udemy.
Used by
Reddit, Yelp, Mozilla, SurveyMoney, NewCars.com.

Jobs [?]

Jobs [?]
5 Stars
2074 job openings which list Django as a requirement.
Jobs [?]
1 Star
80 job openings which list Pyramid as a requirement.

Performance [?]

Performance [?]
4.5 Stars
Not as fast as compared to bare-bones Flask or other microframeworks, but for many real-world use cases, the difference is negligible.
Performance [?]
3 Stars
Claims to have top-notch performance but virtue of being a microframework but benchmarks prove it to be slower than even Django beyond simple use cases.

Flexibility

Flexibility
4.5 Stars
Django expects things to be done in a certain way unlike microframeworks (e.g. Flask) which have no opinion on how developers structure things. However, It does this without compromising on flexibility. Django has been used to build a variety of things from content management systems to social networks to scientific computing platforms.
Flexibility
4.5 Stars
Pyramid is flexible.

Ease of Learning

Ease of Learning
5 Stars
Has a learning curve especially for those who are not familiar with other web frameworks. But there are some great online resources, courses tutorials and YouTube videos.
Ease of Learning
4 Stars
Being a microframework, the learning curve isn't very steep. However, it doesn't have the same amount of tutorials, courses, and resources available for leaning compared to Django and Flask
Database Support

RDBMS Support

RDBMS Support
Built-in Support
Built-in
Django ships with a built-in ORM framework for developers to start using out of the box.
Verdict ORM is one of the best features of Django, loved by developers.
RDBMS Support
Through Plugins or Extensions
Through Plugins or Extensions
No built-in ORM framework. Leaves it up to developers to choose a library like SQLAlchemy

NoSQL Support

NoSQL Support
NoSQL databases are not officially supported by Django. There are open source projects like PynamoDB or Django MongoDB Engine, Django non-rel to support NoSQL. Some of these extensions support specific Django versions and don't interplay well with Django ORM.
Verdict Using NoSQL database with Django is not recommended.
NoSQL Support
Doesn't get in the way of using NoSQL, and they are supported just as well as a relational database. Read more here.
Web & Core Features

Admin Dashboard

Admin Dashboard
Built-in Support
Built-in
Django ships with a web-based admin site that has a friendly UI. It allows you to quickly perform CRUD operations against your models from your browser to test things out.
Admin Dashboard
Through Plugins or Extensions
Through Plugins or Extensions
Doesn't ship with one but 3rd party tools are available.

REST Support

REST Support
While not built-in, REST development is supported via the popular and active Django REST Framework project. It provides support for API versioning, Browsable API for interacting with APIs through web browser, authentication (OAuth1 and OAuth2) and serialization support for both ORM and non-ORM sources.
REST Support
Because it is a minimal framework, users can build a REST API themselves easily, or use a 3rd party library like Cornice.

Security

Security
Built-in protection against several common attack vectors like CSRF, XSS, and SQL injection. When vulnerabilities are discovered, the Django team has an excellent security policy and fixes are released quickly.
Security
Built-in protection against CSRF, but XSS vulnerabilities have been discovered in older versions.

Templating Library

Templating Library
Uses its own templating engine. You could configure Django to use Jinja2 if you like.
Templating Library
Doesn't ship with a default templating language and leaves it up to developers to add one. Jinja2 can be added to Pyramid. Another engine popular amongst Pyramid users is Chameleon .

Web Forms

Web Forms
Ships with built-in ModelForms which provides complete support for web forms including input validation, CSRF, XSS, and SQL injection.
Web Forms
No built-in support. Prefers 3rd party Deform library.

Authentication

Authentication
Built-in authentication, authorization, account management and support for sessions.
Authentication

Testing

Testing
Built-in support using Python's unittest framework.
Testing
Uses pytest for unit testing.

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