Django REST framework vs Rails API vs Sails.js

Overview

Sails.js

Stacks337

Followers511

Votes296

GitHub Stars22.9K

Forks1.9K

Django REST framework

Stacks1.9K

Followers2.1K

Votes312

Rails API

Stacks95

Followers142

Votes16

GitHub Stars5.1K

Forks275

Django REST framework vs Rails API vs Sails.js: What are the differences?

Performance: Django REST framework is known for its high performance due to its lightweight nature and efficient ORM system, while Rails API focuses more on developer productivity with its convention over configuration approach, and Sails.js prioritizes real-time functionality and scalability through its use of WebSockets and built-in support for multiple databases.
Learning Curve: Django REST framework has a steeper learning curve compared to Rails API, which is beginner-friendly with its extensive documentation and conventions, and Sails.js, which provides a more simplified and intuitive development process suitable for beginners.
Flexibility: Django REST framework offers more flexibility in terms of customization and extension of functionalities through its wide range of third-party packages and middleware, whereas Rails API provides a more opinionated structure that may limit flexibility, and Sails.js offers a balanced approach with a good balance between structure and flexibility.
Community Support: Django REST framework has a large and active community with a wealth of resources and plugins available, while Rails API has a mature community with a strong focus on best practices and conventions, and Sails.js has a smaller but growing community that emphasizes real-time application development.
Scalability: Django REST framework is considered highly scalable for handling large volumes of traffic and complex applications, while Rails API may require more effort in scaling due to its monolithic architecture, and Sails.js is designed to handle real-time applications and high traffic volumes efficiently.
Integration: Django REST framework integrates seamlessly with Django's ecosystem, making it a popular choice for Django developers, Rails API integrates well with Ruby on Rails applications, leveraging the full power of the Rails framework, and Sails.js integrates easily with front-end frameworks like Angular, making it a preferred choice for real-time web applications.

In Summary, Django REST framework, Rails API, and Sails.js offer unique strengths in terms of performance, learning curve, flexibility, community support, scalability, and integration, catering to different developer preferences and project requirements.

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Advice on Sails.js, Django REST framework, 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

Hayden

Software Dev

Jan 12, 2021

Needs adviceon

React

I'm going to do an independent study with React for school, and I'm looking to build a full-stack application. I have lots of experience with react, but everything else I'd need is somewhat foreign to me. What I'm looking for is to provide a back-end for a React application.

I'm trying to find a back-end framework that can provide and integrate with almost everything I need (database, API, authentication). I will also need to be able to host everything eventually online rather than just locally on my computer. I don't want to use something that is just click-and-go: I want to learn a lot but find something that has much built in functionality, so I don't have to completely re-invent the wheel.

Does anyone else have experience with a stack you'd recommend that is a happy medium of helpful features while still requiring you to understand and implement the functionality yourself? Something well documented (e.g., it's easy to find documentation regarding putting all the pieces together) would be great.

Thanks in advance!

68.7k views68.7k

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

Detailed Comparison

Sails.js	Django REST framework	Rails API
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.	It is a powerful and flexible toolkit that makes it easy to build Web APIs.	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.
-	The Web browsable API is a huge usability win for your developers.;Authentication policies including OAuth1a and OAuth2 out of the box.;Serialization that supports both ORM and non-ORM data sources.;Customizable all the way down - just use regular function-based views if you don't need the more powerful features.;Extensive documentation, and great community support.;Used and trusted by large companies such as Mozilla and Eventbrite.	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars 22.9K	GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 5.1K
GitHub Forks 1.9K	GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 275
Stacks 337	Stacks 1.9K	Stacks 95
Followers 511	Followers 2.1K	Followers 142
Votes 296	Votes 312	Votes 16
Pros & Cons
Pros 49 Data-driven apis 47 Waterline ORM 37 Mvc 32 Easy rest 25 Real-time Cons 5 Waterline ORM 4 Defaults to VueJS 0 Standard MVC	Pros 67 Easy to use 65 Browsable api 53 Great documentation 51 Customizable 42 Fast development Cons 2 Reimplements Django functionality 2 Bad documentation 1 No support for URL Namespaces 0 Bad CSRF handling	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
Grunt Node.js MySQL PostgreSQL MongoDB Socket.IO ExpressJS	Rollbar Sentry Django Stream Kloudless	Ruby

What are some alternatives to Sails.js, Django REST framework, Rails API?

Node.js

Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Rails

Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

Laravel

It is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.

.NET

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.

ASP.NET Core

A free and open-source web framework, and higher performance than ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

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.

Symfony

It is written with speed and flexibility in mind. It allows developers to build better and easy to maintain websites with PHP..

Spring

A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.

Spring Boot

Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring based Applications that you can "just run". We take an opinionated view of the Spring platform and third-party libraries so you can get started with minimum fuss. Most Spring Boot applications need very little Spring configuration.

Related Comparisons

Django REST framework vs Rails API vs Sails.js: What are the differences?

Performance: Django REST framework is known for its high performance due to its lightweight nature and efficient ORM system, while Rails API focuses more on developer productivity with its convention over configuration approach, and Sails.js prioritizes real-time functionality and scalability through its use of WebSockets and built-in support for multiple databases.
Learning Curve: Django REST framework has a steeper learning curve compared to Rails API, which is beginner-friendly with its extensive documentation and conventions, and Sails.js, which provides a more simplified and intuitive development process suitable for beginners.
Flexibility: Django REST framework offers more flexibility in terms of customization and extension of functionalities through its wide range of third-party packages and middleware, whereas Rails API provides a more opinionated structure that may limit flexibility, and Sails.js offers a balanced approach with a good balance between structure and flexibility.
Community Support: Django REST framework has a large and active community with a wealth of resources and plugins available, while Rails API has a mature community with a strong focus on best practices and conventions, and Sails.js has a smaller but growing community that emphasizes real-time application development.
Scalability: Django REST framework is considered highly scalable for handling large volumes of traffic and complex applications, while Rails API may require more effort in scaling due to its monolithic architecture, and Sails.js is designed to handle real-time applications and high traffic volumes efficiently.
Integration: Django REST framework integrates seamlessly with Django's ecosystem, making it a popular choice for Django developers, Rails API integrates well with Ruby on Rails applications, leveraging the full power of the Rails framework, and Sails.js integrates easily with front-end frameworks like Angular, making it a preferred choice for real-time web applications.

Django REST framework vs Rails API vs Sails.js

Overview