Compare Django and web2py

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.

web2py was originally designed as a teaching tool, but it gained adoption outside of the academic world. It is a full-stack framework containing all the components needed to build fully functional web applications using the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern. Inspired by the Ruby on Rails and Django. It is not very popular right now but was ranked amongst top Python web frameworks in 2011.

Let's see how Django and web2py compare on various factors and features and which to choose when.

Django

web2py

Overall

Type

Type
Python all-inclusive, megaframework for building web application.
Type
Python full-stack for building web applications.

Author

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

Release Date

Release Date
2005
Release Date
2007

License

Website

Website
www.web2py.com
Adoption and Ease of Use

Popularity [?]

Popularity [?]
5 Stars
Used by 367,000 projects.
Popularity [?]
0.5 Star
Used by 36 projects.

Used by

Used by
Instagram, Pinterest, Coursera, Udemy.
Used by
Not in use at any large company.

Jobs [?]

Jobs [?]
5 Stars
2074 job openings which list Django as a requirement.
Jobs [?]
0.5 Star
8 job openings which list web2py 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
Web2py takes a unique approach where models and controllers are executed in a single global environment, which is initialized at each HTTP request. While there are pros to this approach, such as developers never having to worry about cleaning up or avoid conflict between requests, the major disadvantage is that the code is models is executed with every request which carries a performance penalty.

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
3 Stars
Not as flexible as microframeworks, but doesn't always get in the way.

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
2 Stars
Limited online tutorials and resources, and many are several years old. The best resource for learning is web2py author's own "web2py Complete Reference Manual", which seems to be written in 2013.
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
Built-in Support
Built-in
Ships with a Database Abstraction Layer (DAL) which supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and many other relational databases.

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
No built-in support. Very limited support for NoSQL databases. Currently, it only supports Google Datastore on the Google App Engine.
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
Built-in Support
Built-in
Yes ships with a built-in admin panel.

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
Has some support.

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 input injections, XSS, and common vulnerabilities. Read more here. It has known security vulnerabilities. Please see list here.

Templating Library

Templating Library
Uses its own templating engine. You could configure Django to use Jinja2 if you like.
Templating Library
Uses custom web2py templating language out of the box.

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
Built-in support. Read more here.

Authentication

Authentication
Built-in authentication, authorization, account management and support for sessions.
Authentication
Includes a Role Based Access Control mechanism (RBAC), which is sufficient for many use cases.

Testing

Testing
Built-in support using Python's unittest framework.
Testing
Can be done using Python's unittest framework or using the doctest.

If you found this useful, please help us grow by sharing this article with your followers using the sharing icons. Every share or call out will help. Thank you.

Similar Comparisons

Speak Your Mind