Compare Falcon and TurboGears

Falcon is a minimalist WSGI library for building web APIs, app backends and microservices. Compared to Django and Flask, it is fast, extensible, reliable, and encourages RESTful style. It doesn't come with batteries included and is ideal for applications that require a high level of customization. The fminimalist design allows developers to select the best strategies and 3rd-party packages from the Python ecosystem.

TurboGears was born as a full stack layer on top of Pylons, and many other disparate libraries and middleware. It is now a standalone WSGI web framework designed around MVC architecture inspired by Ruby on Rails and provides all the features developes need for web development. It can also run in minimal mode and act like a microframework such as Flask.

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

Falcon

TurboGears

Overall

Type

Type
The minimalist REST and app backend framework for Python with a focus on reliability, correctness, and performance at scale.
Type
A full-stack web application framework for Python.

Author

Author
Kevin Dangoor - Author of TurboGears
Kevin Dangoor

Release Date

Release Date
2012
Release Date
2005

License

License
MIT License

Website

Website
turbogears.org
Adoption and Ease of Use

Popularity [?]

Popularity [?]
1 Star
Used by 5,000 projects.
Popularity [?]
0.5 Star
Used by 500 projects.

Used by

Used by
LinkedIn, Leadpages, Wargaming, and Rackspace.
Used by
Used at SourceForge, Fedora Community and other smaller companies.

Jobs [?]

Jobs [?]
1.5 Stars
100 job openings which list Falcon as a requirement.
Jobs [?]
0 Stars
3 job openings which list TurboGears in the job description.

Performance [?]

Performance [?]
5 Stars
Very fast, even when compared to microframeworks like Flask. See the benchmarks. *Caution* - The benchmarks are from the vendor itself.
Performance [?]
2.5 Stars
Not as performant as barebones or even fullstack frameworks. Extensions could impact performance adversely.

Flexibility

Flexibility
5 Stars
Very flexible. Ideal for applications that require a high degree of customization and performance tuning.
Flexibility
4.5 Stars
Developers can use TurboGears as a microframework which is very flexible. However, as you start building towards a fullstack solution, it does expect things to be done in a certain way.

Ease of Learning

Ease of Learning
5 Stars
Has a slight learning curve but there are some great online resources, courses tutorials and YouTube videos.
Ease of Learning
5 Stars
Has a learning but since it uses a lot of exisitng 3rd party libraries it becomes are little easier to onboard. It also has a decent amount of tutorials online.
Database Support

RDBMS Support

RDBMS Support
Built-in Support
Built-in
Doesn't ship with one but developers can use the database library of their choice such as SQLAlchemy.
RDBMS Support
Built-in Support
Built-in
Ships with SQLAlchemy with Master Slave load Balancing. Before TurboGears v2, the ORM used as SQLObject.

NoSQL Support

NoSQL Support
Doesn't come with built-in libraries but makes it easy for developers to use library of their choice such as MongoEngine to interact with MongoDB.
NoSQL Support
Supports MongoDB out of the box using Ming ORM. Ming ORM was developed to look like SQLAlchemy so it's easier for developers familiar with SQLAlchemy to start using it.
Web & Core Features

Admin Dashboard

Admin Dashboard
Through Plugins or Extensions
Through Plugins or Extensions
Does not ship with a web-based admin.
Admin Dashboard
Built-in Support
Built-in
Built-in admin panel.

REST Support

REST Support
Encourages the REST architectural style by design. Resource classes implement HTTP method handlers that resolve requests and perform state transitions.
REST Support
Built-in support using tg.controllers.RestController. Read this guide to implement.

Security

Security
No built-in protection but minimal attack surface for writing secure APIs
Security
Little built-in protection. Must be handled by developers themselves or by using 3rd party extensions.

Templating Library

Templating Library
Doesn't ship with one but developers can use Jinja2 or Mako.
Templating Library
Ships with internally developed Kajiki templating engine, but supports multiple templating engine including Genshi.

Web Forms

Web Forms
Falcon features easy and efficient access to submitted multipart forms by using falcon.media.MultipartFormHandler.
Web Forms
TurboGears relies on ToscaWidgets2 for building and validating forms.

Authentication

Authentication
Not built-in but can be easily extended using authentication middlewares like falcon-auth2.
Authentication
Ships with repoze.who which is an authentication and identity framework for WSGI applications. Read more here.

Testing

Testing
Support using unittest and pytest. Read more here.
Testing
Using Nose. Read more here.

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