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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.

  1. Language: Flask is a micro web framework written in Python, while Next.js is a JavaScript framework based on React.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

Advice on Flask and Next.js
kristan-dev
Senior Solutions Analyst · | 8 upvotes · 347.1K views

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?

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Replies (1)
Rafael Torres
Technical Lead at 4Agile · | 9 upvotes · 337.5K views

If you want to be a Web developer with knowledge in another frontend and NoSql technology, maybe continue with Flask. However, if you want to create very fast solutions to grow up with a new business and merge these with data analysis and other tools, Django is the answer. Basically read more about the service architecture where you feel more comfortable, Microservice or Monolithic, but please will not married with any because they solve issues to different contexts.

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Girish Sharma
Software Engineer at FireVisor Systems · | 6 upvotes · 275.1K views
Needs advice
on
BottleBottleFlaskFlask
and
NamekoNameko

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.

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Replies (1)
Recommends
on
BottleBottle

Bottle is much less bloated and fast. Its built-in templating system is one of the fastest as it compiles the templates in bytecode. Also Bottle has no depenencies, preventing dependency bloat.

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Saurav Pandit
Application Devloper at Bny Mellon · | 6 upvotes · 292.3K views

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.

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Replies (1)
Recommends
on
FlaskFlask
at

For starters flask provides a beautiful and easy way to create REST APIs. Also its supported by excellent beginner docs as well as a very active community. Another good thing with Flask is its widely available list of plugins which allow you to build as you go. Its also good in performance and can scale to a quite decent level. However, if you are sure your project is going to be fairly big, it would be better to start with Django as it provides a lot of features out of the box and is extremely stable in performance. Both these frameworks have support for Swagger, JWT, Coverage Report although you have to install plugins for them. Deploying both of these are fairly simple and there is huge documentation available. Django has one of the best documentations I have come across. I hope I was able to answer your queries.

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Decisions about Flask and Next.js
Lucas Litton
Founder & CEO at Macombey · | 13 upvotes · 544.6K views

Next.js is probably the most enjoyable React framework our team could have picked. The development is an extremely smooth process, the file structure is beautiful and organized, and the speed is no joke. Our work with Next.js comes out much faster than if it was built on pure React or frameworks alike. We were previously developing all of our projects in Meteor before making the switch. We left Meteor due to the slow compiler and website speed. We deploy all of our Next.js projects on Vercel.

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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!

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Pros of Flask
Pros of Next.js
  • 14
    Flexibilty
  • 10
    For it flexibility
  • 9
    Flexibilty and easy to use
  • 8
    Flask
  • 7
    User friendly
  • 6
    Secured
  • 5
    Unopinionated
  • 3
    Orm
  • 2
    Secure
  • 1
    Beautiful code
  • 1
    Easy to get started
  • 1
    Easy to develop and maintain applications
  • 1
    Not JS
  • 1
    Easy to use
  • 1
    Documentation
  • 1
    Python
  • 1
    Minimal
  • 1
    Lightweight
  • 1
    Easy to setup and get it going
  • 1
    Perfect for small to large projects with superb docs.
  • 1
    Easy to integrate
  • 1
    Speed
  • 1
    Get started quickly
  • 1
    Customizable
  • 1
    Simple to use
  • 1
    Powerful
  • 1
    Rapid development
  • 0
    Open source
  • 0
    Well designed
  • 0
    Productive
  • 0
    Awesome
  • 0
    Expressive
  • 0
    Love it
  • 49
    Automatic server rendering and code splitting
  • 43
    Built with React
  • 33
    Easy setup
  • 26
    TypeScript
  • 24
    Universal JavaScript
  • 22
    Zero setup
  • 21
    Static site generator
  • 12
    Simple deployment
  • 12
    Just JavaScript
  • 12
    Incremental static regeneration
  • 10
    Filesystem as an API
  • 10
    Frictionless development
  • 9
    Everything is a function
  • 9
    Well Documented
  • 8
    Has many examples and integrations
  • 8
    Testing
  • 7
    Isomorphic React applications
  • 4
    File based routing + hooks built in
  • 2
    Deployment
  • 1
    SEO

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Cons of Flask
Cons of Next.js
  • 10
    Not JS
  • 7
    Context
  • 5
    Not fast
  • 1
    Don't has many module as in spring
  • 9
    Structure is weak compared to Angular(2+)

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

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What is Flask?

Flask is intended for getting started very quickly and was developed with best intentions in mind.

What is Next.js?

Next.js is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications.

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What are some alternatives to Flask and Next.js?
Django
Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.
Tornado
By using non-blocking network I/O, Tornado can scale to tens of thousands of open connections, making it ideal for long polling, WebSockets, and other applications that require a long-lived connection to each user.
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.
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.
React
Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.
See all alternatives