Flask vs Next.js

Overview

Flask

Stacks19.3K

Followers16.2K

Votes60

Next.js

Stacks8.0K

Followers5.1K

Votes330

GitHub Stars135.4K

Forks29.7K

Flask vs Next.js: What are the differences?

Flask and Next.js are both popular web development frameworks, but they have key differences in terms of language, architecture, functionality, rendering, server-side rendering, and scalability.

Language: Flask is a micro web framework written in Python, while Next.js is a JavaScript framework based on React.
Architecture: Flask follows a traditional server-side model, where the server renders the web pages and serves them to the client. On the other hand, Next.js follows a client-side rendering model, where the server sends the initial HTML and JavaScript to the client, and the client takes care of rendering the subsequent pages.
Functionality: Flask is a full-featured web framework that provides a wide range of functionality out of the box, including routing, templating, and database integration. Next.js, on the other hand, is specifically designed for building static and server-rendered React applications and provides features like automatic code splitting and routing.
Rendering: With Flask, the server renders the web pages on every request and sends the complete HTML to the client. In contrast, Next.js uses a combination of server-side rendering (SSR) and client-side rendering (CSR) to optimize the rendering process. It performs server-side rendering for the initial page load and then switches to client-side rendering for subsequent page transitions.
Server-side Rendering: Flask requires manual implementation of server-side rendering if needed, whereas Next.js provides built-in server-side rendering capabilities. This means that Next.js can fetch data and render the component on the server before sending it to the client, resulting in faster initial page loads and better SEO.
Scalability: Flask is a lightweight framework that can be easily deployed and scaled on various platforms and configurations. Next.js, on the other hand, is more suitable for building complex, scalable applications due to its built-in support for server-side rendering and scalability features like automatic code splitting.

In summary, Flask and Next.js differ in language, architecture, functionality, rendering, server-side rendering, and scalability, making them suitable for different types of web development projects.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Flask, Next.js

Taylor

May 5, 2020

Review

Hey guys,

My backend set up is Prisma / GraphQL-Yoga at the moment, and I love it. It's so intuitive to learn and is really neat on the frontend too, however, there were a few gotchas when I was learning! Especially around understanding how it all pieces together (the stack). There isn't a great deal of information out there on exactly how to put into production my set up, which is a backend set up on a Digital Ocean droplet with Prisma/GraphQL Yoga in a Docker Container using Next & Apollo Client on the frontend somewhere else. It's such a niche subject, so I bet only a few hundred people have got a website with this stack in production. Anyway, I wrote a blog post to help those who might need help understanding it. Here it is, hope it helps!

758k views758k

Comments

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

Detailed Comparison

Flask	Next.js
Flask is intended for getting started very quickly and was developed with best intentions in mind.	Next.js is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications.
-	Zero setup. Use the filesystem as an API; Only JavaScript. Everything is a function; Automatic server rendering and code splitting; Data fetching is up to the developer; Anticipation is the key to performance; Simple deployment
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 135.4K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 29.7K
Stacks 19.3K	Stacks 8.0K
Followers 16.2K	Followers 5.1K
Votes 60	Votes 330
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 51 Automatic server rendering and code splitting 44 Built with React 34 Easy setup 26 TypeScript 24 Universal JavaScript Cons 9 Structure is weak compared to Angular(2+)
Integrations
No integrations available	React

What are some alternatives to Flask, Next.js?

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.

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Flask vs Next.js: What are the differences?

Flask and Next.js are both popular web development frameworks, but they have key differences in terms of language, architecture, functionality, rendering, server-side rendering, and scalability.

Language: Flask is a micro web framework written in Python, while Next.js is a JavaScript framework based on React.
Architecture: Flask follows a traditional server-side model, where the server renders the web pages and serves them to the client. On the other hand, Next.js follows a client-side rendering model, where the server sends the initial HTML and JavaScript to the client, and the client takes care of rendering the subsequent pages.
Functionality: Flask is a full-featured web framework that provides a wide range of functionality out of the box, including routing, templating, and database integration. Next.js, on the other hand, is specifically designed for building static and server-rendered React applications and provides features like automatic code splitting and routing.
Rendering: With Flask, the server renders the web pages on every request and sends the complete HTML to the client. In contrast, Next.js uses a combination of server-side rendering (SSR) and client-side rendering (CSR) to optimize the rendering process. It performs server-side rendering for the initial page load and then switches to client-side rendering for subsequent page transitions.
Server-side Rendering: Flask requires manual implementation of server-side rendering if needed, whereas Next.js provides built-in server-side rendering capabilities. This means that Next.js can fetch data and render the component on the server before sending it to the client, resulting in faster initial page loads and better SEO.
Scalability: Flask is a lightweight framework that can be easily deployed and scaled on various platforms and configurations. Next.js, on the other hand, is more suitable for building complex, scalable applications due to its built-in support for server-side rendering and scalability features like automatic code splitting.

In summary, Flask and Next.js differ in language, architecture, functionality, rendering, server-side rendering, and scalability, making them suitable for different types of web development projects.