Tornado vs asyncio: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore the key differences between Tornado and asyncio, two popular frameworks used for asynchronous programming in Python.

1. Execution Model: Tornado is an event-driven framework, while asyncio is based on coroutines. Tornado uses an event loop to manage events and callbacks, allowing it to handle a large number of simultaneous connections efficiently. On the other hand, asyncio employs coroutines, which are lightweight functions that can be paused and resumed, to achieve asynchronous execution.

2. Compatibility: Tornado is compatible with both Python 2 and Python 3, making it suitable for a wider range of projects. asyncio, on the other hand, is specifically designed for Python 3.4 and above, taking advantage of the language improvements introduced in later versions.

3. Code Structure: Tornado follows a more traditional approach with explicit callbacks and the use of decorator-based syntax for defining request handlers. It provides a comprehensive set of features for building web applications, including routing, template rendering, and WebSocket support. asyncio, on the other hand, provides a more lightweight and flexible framework for asynchronous programming, allowing developers to create custom event loops and use coroutines in a more modular manner.

4. Community and Support: Tornado has been around for a longer time and has a larger community of users and contributors. It has been extensively used in production environments and has a well-documented API. asyncio, being a relatively newer framework, is still evolving and may have fewer third-party libraries and resources available.

5. Concurrency Models: Tornado uses a single-threaded, non-blocking I/O approach to achieve high concurrency. It achieves this by using asynchronous networking and non-blocking file I/O operations. asyncio, on the other hand, provides a more granular control over concurrency through the use of coroutines and can handle more complex concurrency patterns, such as concurrent HTTP requests.

In summary, the key differences between Tornado and asyncio lie in their execution models, compatibility, code structure, community support, and concurrency models. These differences make them suitable for different types of projects and use cases.