Compare FastAPI and web2py

Fast API is a high-performance web framework for building web applications with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints. It is designed to be high performance and easy to learn.

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 FastAPI and web2py compare on various factors and features and which to choose when.

FastAPI

web2py

Overall

Type

Type
Minimalistic framework based on starlette and pydantic for building fast web applications using async IO.
Type
Python full-stack for building web applications.

Author

Release Date

Release Date
2018
Release Date
2007

License

License
MIT License

Website

Website
www.web2py.com
Adoption and Ease of Use

Popularity [?]

Popularity [?]
New addition to the Python web frameworks family but its popularity is on the rise.
Popularity [?]
0.5 Star
Used by 36 projects.

Used by

Used by
Uber (internal use,) Explosion AI, Microsoft (internal use)
Used by
Not in use at any large company.

Jobs [?]

Jobs [?]
1.5 Stars
100 job openings which list Fast API as a requirement.
Jobs [?]
0.5 Star
8 job openings which list web2py as a requirement.

Performance [?]

Performance [?]
5 Stars
High performance.
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
5 Stars
Fast API is flexible to code and doesn't restrict users to a particular project or code layout.
Flexibility
3 Stars
Not as flexible as microframeworks, but doesn't always get in the way.

Ease of Learning

Ease of Learning
4.5 Stars
Easy to learn especially for people who are new to web development. However, it doesn't have a large number of online resources, courses and tutorials.
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
Through Plugins or Extensions
Through Plugins or Extensions
FastAPI doesn't come with built in ORM, however is compatible with SQLAlchemy, Pydantic ORM mode.
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
Fast API supports many NoSQL databases like MongoDb, ElasticSearch, Cassandra, CouchDB and ArangoDB. Read more here.
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
Yes, uses Swagger as an API documentation web user interface.
Admin Dashboard
Built-in Support
Built-in
Yes ships with a built-in admin panel.

REST Support

REST Support
Yes, allows developers to build REST APIs quickly.
REST Support
Has some support.

Security

Security
FastAPI provides several tools for many security schemes in the fastapi.security module. Not enough data.
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
FastAPI supports Jinja2 for templating and also supports aiofiles for serving static files
Templating Library
Uses custom web2py templating language out of the box.

Web Forms

Web Forms
Ships with it's own Forms, with basic features.
Web Forms
Built-in support. Read more here.

Authentication

Authentication
Fast API supports OAuth2, JWT and simple HTTP authentiation.
Authentication
Includes a Role Based Access Control mechanism (RBAC), which is sufficient for many use cases.

Testing

Testing
Using Starlette and pytest.
Testing
Can be done using Python's unittest framework or using the doctest.

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Credits This page was made possible thanks to contributions from Soumyaranjan Acharya who provided data and write up for Fast API.

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