Web development has been receiving a lot of attention, and the developments are developing pretty quickly despite its popularity and the increased desire for adaptable development. Django and Laravel are two back-end development technologies that are widely used in the web development community. Before comparing the two most famous web development frameworks, let’s first understand the base of these frameworks.
How Do Web Frameworks Work?
A web framework is a simplified abstraction or software framework. They are employed in the development and online deployment of web applications.
Web frameworks are intended to make the process of developing software easier, particularly for novice web developers who might not be ready to create code from scratch. Alternatively, users can construct the applications and add functionality using a reusable piece of code. This code frequently includes pre-template code and a common structure.
Because of web frameworks, you can avoid the difficulties of creating the application’s low-level infrastructure and get right to the application logic. Hence, you will be able to easily design a tidy, professional application.
Web Framework Types: Front-end and Back-end
Web frameworks can be broadly divided into two categories: frontend and backend.
Front-end Web Frameworks
Frontend frameworks, sometimes referred to as client-side frameworks, are used to solve problems that arise on the client side during web development.
To put it briefly, frontend frameworks handle the UI of an application independently from the logic behind it. Most commonly, these frameworks are utilized to enhance UI elements for a more satisfying user experience. Furthermore, frontend frameworks allow for the development of a wide variety of animated elements and single-page applications.
Angular, Vue.js, and Ember.js are three of the most well-known front-end frameworks. Each one was built with JavaScript and CSS.
Back-end Web Frameworks
Backend frameworks, also referred to as server-side frameworks, are concerned with what takes place inside the server or database. These frameworks are used to handle the application’s internal “guts” in their entirety.
Backend frameworks take care of data management, response management, testing, and other tasks. They participate in a number of essential functions as well, including routing, templating, object-oriented mapping, and others.
These frameworks let you create web forms, landing pages, and other types of straightforward web sites. They can be used to create output data and improve security to lessen web attacks.
Django, Laravel, Ruby on Rails, and Express.js are a few of the well-known backend frameworks. Additionally, they are built on HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
Which web framework to use: Django or Laravel
As there is a plethora of options accessible, it might be challenging to pick the best set of tools, libraries, and frameworks. It’s important to research each web framework and tool set to determine which one would simplify, speed up, and improve your web development workflow the most.
Django and Laravel are two of the most well-liked web frameworks. They compete with each other so vigorously that it can be tough for programmers to choose between them.
To help you decide which framework is best for your project, let’s dig more into Django and Laravel.
What Is Django?
A Python-based open-source and free web framework is called Django. It was created and is kept up to date by the Django Software Foundation and was released in 2005. The most recent version of Django, version 3.2, was released and includes a 3-clause BSD license.
With this high-level web framework, creating better online applications quickly and with less code is simple. Clean and practical design is encouraged by Django for quick web app development. It can help developers save time and effort because of its readable syntax. It is portable and adaptable for usage in both testing and development.
Django uses the Model-View-Template (MVT) architecture to create aesthetically attractive and incredibly functional web applications. It includes a number of pre-made feature packages and is very flexible to many project kinds across numerous sectors.
Complex application development is greatly facilitated by it. It supports the creation of products for data science, computation, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and other scientific applications because it is a Python-based framework.
Features of Django
- Free and open-source: Django is free and open-source, therefore all you need to do to use it to develop your application is download and install it. It reduces the expense of development while also enhancing convenience. Even coding and bug fixing are things you can help with.
- Simplicity: Django strives to make it simpler to create intricate, database-driven websites and apps. Its learner-friendly code and straightforward syntax are ideal for beginning developers, and since its learning curve is nearly flat, you will not have any issue comprehending and utilizing it in your web projects.
- Speed: With the help of this framework, developers may finish their projects more quickly from conception to launch. It is intended for rapid web development, allowing you to quickly build a huge number of apps.
- Secure: Django is a framework that is designed to withstand destructive attacks like request forgery, cross-site scripting, SQL injection, clickjacking, and other security flaws. For managing user passwords and accounts, it has a secure user authentication mechanism.
- Scalable: In order to handle high traffic needs, modern systems must provide great scalability. Django can handle large traffic even during peak hours and scale swiftly to meet the expansion of your user base.
- Fully featured: To handle web development tasks, Django includes thousands of additional capabilities. Out of the box, it can handle duties like content management, user authentication, RSS feeds, site maps, and more.
- Simple management: Django’s highly flexible architecture makes it simple to manage development tasks from initial conception to final deployment. Also, you receive a free administrative interface that allows you to add, edit, read, and delete items. For files, settings, and data models, Python is used all along.
- Flexibility and adaptability: Django allows you to create a wide range of software products, from simple websites to intricate apps, social networks, and scientific computing systems.
- Extensibility: If third-party code adheres to reusable application conventions, Django’s configuration system enables you to insert it into a project. There are more than 2,500 packages available to increase the capability of this framework and provide other features like search, registration, CMS, API consumption and provision, and more.
What Is Django Used For?
Large amounts of textual information, high traffic, media files, and other web-based applications are all great candidates for Django. It is also effective for creating social media websites, e-commerce websites, healthcare software, booking websites, transportation websites, and apps for food and drink, to name a few.
Most frequently, Django is used to make:
- B2B customer relationship management systems and custom CRM solutions are used by high-traffic e-commerce and booking platforms to manage their internal data.
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android that can access the web
- Predictive financial systems that take into account the user’s risk preferences, demographic data, and other factors.
- Appraisal and record-keeping software for the real estate industry
- Tools for resolving legal issues and fostering open dialogue between businesses and their clients.
- Tools for sending and receiving emails, algorithm-based generators, administrative dashboards, investment fund management interfaces, data analysis and verification tools, and so on and so forth.
What Is Laravel?
Laravel is a PHP web framework that is both free and open source. Taylor Otwell developed it in 2011 for the express purpose of making online applications. The Laravel framework is covered by the MIT license.
Laravel is a PHP framework based on Symfony that employs a model-view-controller (MVC) architecture. The project’s codebase can be accessed on a dedicated page on the code hosting service GitHub. One of the most popular web frameworks, Laravel is renowned for its powerful features that simplify and streamline web development for programmers.
CMSs, news sites, and simple networking systems are just some of the many types of websites and applications that may be built using it.
Features of Laravel
Similar to Django, Laravel offers a variety of capabilities to make it simple for developers to construct products. Among Laravel’s features are:
- Free and open source: Laravel is open source and available free to use. The MIT license enables you to utilize its code in any way developers want for their products. Hence, the development cost involved drives straight down.
- Expressive and sleek syntax: Its syntax is developer-friendly. You can build a variety of software products without troubling yourself with small, repetitive things.
- Modular packaging: Since Laravel 3’s release, Bundles have been included and are available to use easily in the applications. Also, Laravel 4 utilizes Composer — a dependency manager for Laravel-specific and framework-agnostic PHP packages — that you can access from Packagist.
- Artisan CLI: The command-line interface (CLI) in Laravel is called Artisan, released in Laravel 3. It incorporates various components of Symfony. It helps in managing and creating Laravel-based apps with higher efficiency. It also manages database migrations, seeding, creating boilerplate code, publishing package assets, and more.
- Query builder: This provides direct database access and a suite of methods and classes capable of creating queries programmatically. It does not require you to write SQL queries directly. And you can also selectively cache executed query results.
- Eloquent ORM: Eloquent object-relational mapping (ORM) is a sophisticated PHP-based active record pattern implementation. It lets you enforce constraints on how database objects are related. It also allows developers to make database queries using PHP syntax instead of writing SQL code.
- Application logic: This is implemented as route declarations or by using controllers. The syntax of application logic matches that of the Sinatra framework.
- Restful controllers: These offer an option to separate the logic behind POST and GET requests.
- Reverse routing: This defines how routes and links relate and makes it possible to apply later changes automatically to relevant links.
- Class autoloading: Provides automated PHP class-loading without requiring maintaining the inclusion path manually. Loading on demand prevents you from including unnecessary components.
- Template-based engine: Combines multiple templates using a data model for view generation by transpiling templates into cached code for better performance. It’s an incredible tool for creating dynamic sites and also offers control structures, including loops and a conditional statements mapper internally.
- Migrations: These provide version control for database schemas to associate changes in codebase and database layouts. Consequently, it simplifies app deployment and updates.
Apart from all these, Laravel has many other advanced features, such as Inversion of Control (IoC) containers for generating new objects, unit testing for detecting and mitigating regressions, automatic pagination, Homestead (a Vagrant VM), Canvas (publishing platform), and lazy collection for handling heavy data loads.
What Is Laravel Used For?
With its wealth of features and capabilities, Laravel transforms the process of developing websites into an artistic endeavor. It makes routine web development chores like routing, sessions, authentication, and caching easier.
You can use this robust and user-friendly technology, to build:
- Robust and large-sized applications
- PHP-based custom web applications with a wealth of features and multiple languages Websites with CMSs and blogs
- Dynamic versus static pages
- Sites for social networking and SaaS applications
- E-commerce websites and business-level applications
- forums, news, employment portals, and other types of websites
Difference between Django and Laravel
| Parameters | Django | Laravel |
| Programming Language | Python | PHP |
| Architecture | MVT (Model View Template) | MVC (Model View Controller) |
| Code | Complex because it uses regular expression | Simple because it uses syntax |
| Performance | Faster. For instance, Django processed 69k JSON replies in a second during the 2018 JSON serialization test. | Slower. For instance, Laravel
achieved an 8k response/second in the same test. |
| Scalability | Django is capable of handling heavy traffic with ease. It seamlessly integrates with a variety of technologies and maintains the fastest loading times. Additionally, it optimizes elements like CSS, HTML, and pictures while distributing the load among the various resources. | Applications built with Laravel can grow without any restrictions. Because it was created in PHP, it supports enterprises that are expanding quickly. We can make Laravel highly scalable by using a reliable load balancer and database. |
| Community | It has a sizable development community and is maintained by the Django Software Foundation. In addition, it offers top-notch programs and a welcoming environment. | It also has a sizable development community. It offers application architecture, dependency injection, and a solid community package. |
| Development | A lightweight web server with quicker and easier development is offered by Django. It simplifies the testing and development processes from beginning to end. | The cron jobs are executed using the Laravel framework, which supports queues and an event & command bus. |
| Compatibility | There are numerous well-known frameworks for Python. | Only PHP is regarded as a framework. |
| Security | Django has the best security measures to prevent typical web development errors. | Although it offers the fundamental security interface, it falls short of the Django security level. |
| API | There is no built-in API support in Django. To create APIs, developers must include libraries. | Laravel includes integrated API support. As a result, we may develop RESTAPI without including any additional libraries. |
| GitHub | 43,384 stars | 34,329 stars |
| Middlewares Support | Yes to all | only HTTP |
| Design | Ready-to-use Administrative Graphical Interface | Template engine mechanism |
| Front-end Support | Binding with a front-end JS framework is quite difficult. | It includes built-in support for Vue.JS. |
| Maintenance | Django is maintained by the Django Software Foundation | It is maintained by the developer themselves |
| Popular Users | Instagram, NASA, Spotify, Dropbox, Mozilla, The Washington Post, Reddit, Udemy, and Pinterest | Toyota Hall of Fame, BBC, UNION, Lenovo, Wikipedia, FedEx, 9GAG, Laracasts, Asgard CMS |
Conclusion: Which Web framework is better?
Actually, there are many similarities between the apps that can be created using Django and Laravel. The web application framework, where the former supports Python and the latter PHP, is where the main distinction can be found. This results in certain variations in libraries and functionality to satisfy various requirements.
In terms of speed (helped in part by Python’s quickness), scalability, and maintenance, Django wins out. Decorators, SEO tools, and third-party libraries are some of its built-in utilities. On the other hand, Laravel has simpler functionality and includes strategy infusion, making it easier to use. The language and features of the framework are ultimately what determine which one to use.
