9+ Best Python Frameworks For App Development

According to Stack Overflow’s 2019 Developer Survey, Python is the most wanted programming language, surpassing JavaScript and Go!

The growth and popularity of this general-purpose, high-level programming language can be judged by the fact that over 152,000 websites are built using Python, including some of the world’s most successful tech companies such as Netflix, Instagram, Dropbox, and Pinterest.

With Python gaining so much traction among the community of developers, there has been a tremendous rise in the number of Python frameworks to ease the web application development process. Through this blog post, we'll get acquainted with the top twelve frameworks that you can use as a Python web developers to achieve more with fewer lines of code.

Let’s get started!

Django

Built by experienced developers, Django is a free and open-source high-level Python web framework designed to help developers build complex data-driven websites and web applications quickly and effectively. Following the DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle, takes out much of the hassle involved in web application development so you can concentrate on developing the app, instead of reinventing the wheel every time. In short, Django is:

• Ridiculously fast
• Reassuringly secure
• Exceedingly scalable
• Incredibly versatile

Flask

Developed by Armin Ronacher, an Austrian software programmer, Flask is a lightweight yet powerful micro-web application framework which is highly suitable for developers to build a standalone app. It is called micro-framework because it doesn’t contain the following elements:

• Specific tools and libraries
• Database abstraction layer
• Form validation

As compared to Django, this Unicode based Python framework is best suited for small and easy projects. Some other notable features of Flask include:

• Built-in development server and a blazing fast debugger
• Support for unit testing
• RESTful request dispatching
• WSGI 1.0 compliance
• HTTP request handling
• Compatible with Google App Engine

Pyramid

Pyramid is a full-stack Python framework with a primary goal of achieving as much as possible with minimalistic complexity. The most striking thing about this framework is its ability to work equally well with both small and large-scale projects. Moreover, with a multitude of resources available, you can extend it to meet your requirements. Some of the Pyramid’s great features include:

• URL generation
• Function decorators
• Single-file applications
• Extensible configuration
• Templating and asset specifications
• Flexible authentication and authorization

CherryPy

CherryPy is an object-oriented, minimalist micro web-framework that allows developers to incorporate the CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update and Delete) functionalities into their applications. You don’t need Apache server to run apps built using this fabulous framework as it comes packed with a reliable multi-threaded web server and runs apps on any OS that supports Python. Some of the key features of CherryPy include:

• A powerful configuration system
• A flexible built-in plugin system
• Ability to run on PyPy, Jython, and even Android
• Ability to run on multiple HTTP servers simultaneously
• Built-in support for coverage, profiling, and unit-testing
• Out-of-the-box tools for encoding, caching, authentication, etc

Bottle

Another interesting Python framework is Bottle, which falls under the category of WSGI micro web-frameworks. Originally developed for building web APIs, this simple, lightweight, and fast framework is distributed as a single file module with no dependencies other than the Python Standard Library. Bottle is best suited for building small web applications with at most 500 lines of code and no special requirements. Some of the key features of Bottle are:

• Built-in HTTP server
• Single-file deployment
• No external dependencies
• Plugin support for different databases
• Support for forms, headers, cookies, and file uploads.

TurboGears

Built on the top of several next-generation web frameworks such as Django and Rails, TurboGears is an open-source full-stack web application framework designed to help developers overcome the limitations presented by various web frameworks. Using this easy-to-set-up framework, one can quickly develop data-driven, extensible web applications in Python. Some of the key features of TurboGears include:

• Command-line tools
• MVC-style pluggable architecture
• A designer-friendly template system
• Built-in support for database sharding
• Support for SQLObject and SQLAlchemy
• Integration with the MochiKit Javascript library
• A powerful and flexible ORM with real multi-database support

Web2Py

Initially started as a hobby project, Web2Py is another open-source full-stack framework that allows developers to quickly build portable, secure, and scalable database-driven web applications in Python. Following a zero-dependency approach, this cross-platform framework neither has any special requirements nor requires anything to install.

The main objective of Web2Py is to simplify the web application development process through a full-featured Web-based editor, a web server, and a SQL database. Some nice features of Web2py include:

• Follows MVC pattern
• Pure-Python templating
• Virtually no learning curve
• A pleasant and consistent API
• Ability to read multiple protocols
• Role-based access control and internationalization
• Ability to run on any platform supporting Java or Python

Falcon

Falcon is a bare-metal Python web API framework best suited for blazing fast, responsive app backends and large-scale microservices. Encouraging the REST architectural style, this amazing micro-framework is well-known for speed, making the development of microservices and backends a breeze for developers. And, one of the best things about Falcon is that it comes with several add-ons, templates, and complementary packages to ease application development. Some notable features of Falcon are:

• Idiomatic HTTP error responses
• Highly-optimized, extensible codebase
• Upfront exception handling
• REST-inspired resource classes
• Unit testing via WSGI helpers and mocks
• URI templates for intuitive routines

CubicWeb

Developed and maintained by Logilab, CubicWeb is an open-source, semantic full-stack web application framework that follows the well known object-oriented design principles and allows developers to reuse components to build web applications quickly and efficiently. Unlike other frameworks, this framework is based on the explicit data model and uses reusable components, called cubes, instead of separate views and models. Some of the main features of CubicWeb are:

• Supports OWL/RDF
• Embeds RQL to simplify data-related queries
• A library of reusable components called cubes
• Supports SQL, LDAP, Subversion, and Mercurial
• Support for multiple databases
• Good security workflow

In addition to the above-mentioned Python frameworks, you can also give Sanic, Zope, and Tornado frameworks a try, which also offer you some really fantastic features to build highly secure and functional web apps!