Flask vs Rails API

Overview

Flask

Stacks19.3K

Followers16.2K

Votes60

Rails API

Stacks95

Followers142

Votes16

GitHub Stars5.1K

Forks275

Flask vs Rails API: What are the differences?

Introduction: When comparing Flask and Rails API, there are key differences that distinguish these web development frameworks. Below are the specific differences between Flask and Rails API.

Language: Flask is written in Python, while Rails API is written in Ruby. This difference in programming languages can significantly impact the choice of framework based on the developer's preference or expertise with a particular language.
Philosophy: Flask is known for its minimalistic and lightweight approach, allowing developers the freedom to make choices regarding design and functionality. In contrast, Rails API follows the convention over configuration principle, providing a more structured framework with built-in solutions for common web development tasks.
Modularity: Flask is highly modular in nature, allowing developers to choose and integrate only the components they need for their specific project requirements. Rails API, on the other hand, comes with a full-stack framework that includes a wide range of built-in features, enhancing productivity but potentially leading to heavier applications.
Community Support: The Flask community is known for its flexibility and diversity, with a wide range of extensions and libraries available for customization. Rails API has a strong, dedicated community that promotes best practices and offers extensive documentation and support for developers working within the framework.
Learning Curve: Flask's lightweight structure makes it easier for beginners to grasp the fundamentals of web development and Python programming. Rails API, with its convention-driven approach and extensive set of features, may have a steeper learning curve for newcomers to web development or Ruby programming.
Performance: Due to its minimalist design, Flask is often favored for its fast performance and responsiveness in handling simple web applications or APIs. Rails API, with its comprehensive framework and built-in features, may require more resources and overhead, potentially impacting performance in certain use cases.

In Summary, Flask and Rails API differ in language, philosophy, modularity, community support, learning curve, and performance, making each framework suitable for different development scenarios based on specific project requirements and developer preferences.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs

CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Flask, Rails API

Kristan Eres

Senior Solutions Analyst

Jul 30, 2020

Needs adviceon

Django

Python

Flask

My journey to developing REST APIs started with Flask Restful, and I've found it to be enough for the needs of my project back then. Now that I've started investing more time on personal projects, I've yet to decide if I should move to use Django for writing REST APIs. I often see job posts looking for Python+Django developers, but it's usually for full-stack developers. I'm primarily interested in Data Engineering, so most of my web projects are back end.

Should I continue with what I know (Flask) or move on to Django?

392k views392k

Comments

Saurav

Application Devloper at Bny Mellon

Mar 27, 2020

Needs advice

I have just started learning Python 3 weeks ago. I want to create a REST API using python. The API will be used to save form data in an Oracle database. The front end is using AngularJS 8 with Angular Material. In python, there are so many frameworks to develop REST APIs.

I am looking for some suggestions which REST framework to choose?

Here are some features I am looking for:

Easy integration and unit testing, like in Angular. We just want to run a command.
Code packaging, like in java maven project we can build and package. I am looking for something which I can push in as an artifact and deploy whole code as a package.
Support for swagger/ OpenAPI
Support for JSON Web Token
Support for test case coverage report

Framework can have features included or can be available by extension. Also, you can suggest a framework other than the ones I have mentioned.

337k views337k

Comments

Girish

Software Engineer at FireVisor Systems

Apr 17, 2020

Needs adviceon

Python

Nameko

RabbitMQ

Which is the best Python framework for microservices?

We are using Nameko for building microservices in Python. The things we really like are dependency injection and the ease with which one can expose endpoints via RPC over RabbitMQ. We are planning to try a tool that helps us write polyglot microservices and nameko is not super compatible with it. Also, we are a bit worried about the not so good community support from nameko and looking for a python alternate to write microservices.

310k views310k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Flask	Rails API
Flask is intended for getting started very quickly and was developed with best intentions in mind.	Rails::API is a subset of a normal Rails application, created for applications that don't require all functionality that a complete Rails application provides. It is a bit more lightweight, and consequently a bit faster than a normal Rails application. The main example for its usage is in API applications only, where you usually don't need the entire Rails middleware stack nor template generation.
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 5.1K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 275
Stacks 19.3K	Stacks 95
Followers 16.2K	Followers 142
Votes 60	Votes 16
Pros & Cons
Pros 10 For it flexibility 9 Flexibilty and easy to use 7 User friendly 6 Secured 5 Unopinionated Cons 10 Not JS 7 Context 5 Not fast 1 Don't has many module as in spring	Pros 5 Lightweight 5 Great for quick decoupled apps 3 Simply the best 2 Soon to be merged into core Rails 5 1 Logging by default
Integrations
No integrations available	Ruby

What are some alternatives to Flask, Rails API?

ExpressJS

Express is a minimal and flexible node.js web application framework, providing a robust set of features for building single and multi-page, and hybrid web applications.

Django REST framework

It is a powerful and flexible toolkit that makes it easy to build Web APIs.

Sails.js

Sails is designed to mimic the MVC pattern of frameworks like Ruby on Rails, but with support for the requirements of modern apps: data-driven APIs with scalable, service-oriented architecture.

Sinatra

Sinatra is a DSL for quickly creating web applications in Ruby with minimal effort.

Lumen

Laravel Lumen is a stunningly fast PHP micro-framework for building web applications with expressive, elegant syntax. We believe development must be an enjoyable, creative experience to be truly fulfilling. Lumen attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as routing, database abstraction, queueing, and caching.

Slim

Slim is easy to use for both beginners and professionals. Slim favors cleanliness over terseness and common cases over edge cases. Its interface is simple, intuitive, and extensively documented — both online and in the code itself.

Fastify

Fastify is a web framework highly focused on speed and low overhead. It is inspired from Hapi and Express and as far as we know, it is one of the fastest web frameworks in town. Use Fastify can increase your throughput up to 100%.

Falcon

Falcon is a minimalist WSGI library for building speedy web APIs and app backends. We like to think of Falcon as the Dieter Rams of web frameworks.

hapi

hapi is a simple to use configuration-centric framework with built-in support for input validation, caching, authentication, and other essential facilities for building web applications and services.

TypeORM

It supports both Active Record and Data Mapper patterns, unlike all other JavaScript ORMs currently in existence, which means you can write high quality, loosely coupled, scalable, maintainable applications the most productive way.

Related Comparisons

Flask vs Rails API: What are the differences?

Introduction: When comparing Flask and Rails API, there are key differences that distinguish these web development frameworks. Below are the specific differences between Flask and Rails API.

Language: Flask is written in Python, while Rails API is written in Ruby. This difference in programming languages can significantly impact the choice of framework based on the developer's preference or expertise with a particular language.
Philosophy: Flask is known for its minimalistic and lightweight approach, allowing developers the freedom to make choices regarding design and functionality. In contrast, Rails API follows the convention over configuration principle, providing a more structured framework with built-in solutions for common web development tasks.
Modularity: Flask is highly modular in nature, allowing developers to choose and integrate only the components they need for their specific project requirements. Rails API, on the other hand, comes with a full-stack framework that includes a wide range of built-in features, enhancing productivity but potentially leading to heavier applications.
Community Support: The Flask community is known for its flexibility and diversity, with a wide range of extensions and libraries available for customization. Rails API has a strong, dedicated community that promotes best practices and offers extensive documentation and support for developers working within the framework.
Learning Curve: Flask's lightweight structure makes it easier for beginners to grasp the fundamentals of web development and Python programming. Rails API, with its convention-driven approach and extensive set of features, may have a steeper learning curve for newcomers to web development or Ruby programming.
Performance: Due to its minimalist design, Flask is often favored for its fast performance and responsiveness in handling simple web applications or APIs. Rails API, with its comprehensive framework and built-in features, may require more resources and overhead, potentially impacting performance in certain use cases.

Flask vs Rails API

Overview