Comparative study on Python web frameworks: Flask and Django

Abstract

The purpose of the thesis was to study the various features, advantages, and the limitation of two web development frameworks for Python programming language. It aims to compare the usage of Django and Flask frameworks from a novice point of view. The theoretical part of the thesis presents the various types of programming languages and web technologies. In the practical part, however, the study is divided into two parts, each part observing the respective web application framework.

In order to perform the comparison, a social network and eCommerce like application was built for Flask and Django respectively. The comparison was started by developing the social network application first with Flask and finished with the e-commerce application using Django. Python programing language, SQLite database for the backend and HTML, JavaScript, and Ajax were used for the frontend technology. At the end of the project, both applications were deployed to the cloud platform called Heroku.

After the comparison, it was found that the most significant advantages of Flask were that it provides simplicity, flexibility, fine-grained control and quick and easy to learn. On the other hand, Django was easy to work with because of its extensive features and support for libraries. Another main advantage of Django is its scalability. It is best fit for a large-scale application. Each framework has its limitations and radiates a fair share of disadvantages. For example, Django is a bit cumbersome for smaller sized applications. However, Flask is too simple to not have the necessary features within the framework.

As a result of this study, it seems that both frameworks are capable of serving production-grade web applications while having a fair share of advantages and disadvantages.