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Django REST framework VS soapUI

Compare Django REST framework VS soapUI and see what are their differences

Django REST framework logo Django REST framework

Django REST framework is a toolkit for building web APIs.

soapUI logo soapUI

SoapUI Pro is one of the most prominent API testing platforms around, allowing developers to quickly prototype the functions of their apps and get them to market with little hassle.
  • Django REST framework Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-18
  • soapUI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-16

Django REST framework features and specs

  • Rich Feature Set
    Django REST framework (DRF) offers a comprehensive toolkit for building Web APIs, including serialization, authentication, and viewsets, which facilitate the creation of complex RESTful services with minimal effort.
  • Integration with Django
    DRF seamlessly integrates with Django's ORM and associated components, allowing for a coherent and efficient development process that leverages all of Django’s features and tools.
  • Robust Documentation
    DRF has extensive, clear, and well-structured documentation, which helps developers understand its features, integrations, and best practices quickly.
  • Community Support
    A large and active community supports DRF, meaning developers can find plenty of resources, tutorials, third-party packages, and forums for troubleshooting and enhancing their applications.
  • Flexibility
    DRF provides a lot of flexibility through class-based views and a highly customizable architecture, allowing developers to tweak their APIs to meet specific project requirements.
  • Authentication Options
    DRF supports multiple built-in authentication methods such as token-based authentication, OAuth, and JWT, along with the ability to create custom authentication mechanisms.

Possible disadvantages of Django REST framework

  • Learning Curve
    Although DRF is powerful, it comes with a steep learning curve, especially for beginners who are not familiar with Django or RESTful concepts, which can lead to a longer onboarding process.
  • Performance Overhead
    The abstraction and additional features provided by DRF can introduce some performance overhead, making raw Django views or other minimal frameworks sometimes more suitable for highly performance-sensitive applications.
  • Complexity
    For small projects or simple APIs, DRF might be overkill due to its inherent complexity and the numerous options it provides, which can slow down initial setup and development.
  • Tight Coupling with Django
    DRF is tightly coupled with Django, meaning that it’s not a suitable choice if you are looking to use a different web framework or need more flexibility in the choice of the underlying web framework.
  • Documentation Depth
    While the documentation is generally excellent, some advanced features are not as deeply covered, which can make implementing more complex customizations challenging without diving into the source code.

soapUI features and specs

  • Comprehensive Testing
    soapUI supports a wide range of testing types including functional, security, and load testing, providing a one-stop solution for API testing needs.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    The tool features an intuitive graphical user interface, making it accessible for users with varying levels of technical expertise.
  • Extensive Protocol Support
    soapUI supports multiple protocols like SOAP, REST, JMS, AMF, as well as a range of underlying technologies including HTTP, HTTPS, JMS, etc., offering flexibility in testing different kinds of APIs.
  • Scripting Capability
    With Groovy scripting support, users can create custom assertions, automation scripts, and add advanced logic to their tests.
  • Community and Documentation
    A large community of users and extensive documentation and tutorials are available, aiding in faster troubleshooting and learning.
  • Integrations
    soapUI integrates well with other tools such as Jenkins, Maven, and JIRA, streamlining the CI/CD pipeline.
  • Open Source Version
    The availability of an open-source version allows users to start testing without any initial cost.

Possible disadvantages of soapUI

  • Performance Issues
    soapUI can become slow, especially with large and complex projects, which can affect productivity.
  • High Memory Usage
    The application often consumes a significant amount of memory, leading to potential performance degradation on less powerful machines.
  • Steep Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While the basic features are user-friendly, mastering advanced functionalities and scripting capabilities can be challenging for beginners.
  • Limited Advanced Reporting
    The reporting capabilities in the open-source version are quite basic compared to other commercial API testing tools.
  • Paid Licensing for Pro Features
    Many advanced features and more efficient workflows are locked behind the paid 'Pro' version, which might not be affordable for smaller teams or individual developers.
  • UI Glitches
    Users occasionally report glitches and bugs in the graphical user interface, which can be inconvenient and interrupt workflow.
  • Lack of Cloud Deployment
    As of now, soapUI does not offer a cloud-native or SaaS version, limiting flexibility for teams that prefer cloud-based tools.

Django REST framework videos

Django Vs Django Rest Framework 2020

More videos:

  • Review - Getting Started With Django REST Framework

soapUI videos

REST API Automation - SoapUI OpenSource Review - Mac

More videos:

  • Review - Testing REST API with SoapUI OpenSource - Part 6 - Assertions - Mac
  • Review - SoapUI Certification : Basic details about certification

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Django REST framework and soapUI)
API Tools
41 41%
59% 59
Website Testing
0 0%
100% 100
APIs
100 100%
0% 0
API Management
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Django REST framework and soapUI

Django REST framework Reviews

We have no reviews of Django REST framework yet.
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soapUI Reviews

Top 20 Open Source & Cloud Free Postman Alternatives (2024 Updated)
Product Introduction: SoapUI is a robust tool for testing SOAP and REST APIs, known for its extensive testing capabilities, including functional, load, and security testing, which makes it the perfect postman alternative.
Source: medium.com
Best Postman Alternatives To Consider in 2025
This open-source tool caters specifically to SOAP and RESTful web services. SoapUI excels in security testing, with features like load testing and functional testing. While not as beginner friendly as Postman, SoapUI offers a comprehensive solution for more complex API testing needs.
Postman Alternatives for API Testing and Monitoring
SoapUI is a popular open-source and commercial API testing tool (the commercial is called ReadyAPI), due to its powerful capabilities, flexibility and user-friendly platform. It’s particularly effective for testing SOAP, REST and GraphQL APIs. SoapUI allows inputting the WSDL or endpoint URL, configuring the requests with headers, parameters, or body content and sending the...
15 Best Postman Alternatives for Automated API Testing [2022 Updated]
SoapUI provides security and load testing features, and its functional testing supports SOAP and REST API. Users can use SoapUI’s drag-and-drop or point-and-click for scripting features, creating and running automated regression, compliance, and load tests on Web API.
Source: testsigma.com
15 BEST SoapUI Alternatives (2022 Update)
SoapUI is a widely popular API testing tool. It allows you to test REST and SOAP protocols. It facilitates seamless integrations and reusability of scripts. However, load and workflow testing is difficult with SoapUI.
Source: www.guru99.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Django REST framework seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 3 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Django REST framework mentions (3)

  • API framework choice?
    Django Rest Framework seems like the most mature and works great with Django. But its strength, if I understand correctly, is for auto-creating all the necessary endpoints for manipulating models, which might be useful for data entry applications. I know that it's super flexible and probably my use case will be covered, but it seems that this it might get complicated. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Django REST difference between permission classes and authentication classes
    There is one last thing I'm a little confused on with Django Rest Framework and that's the different between permission classes and authentication classes. Source: about 3 years ago
  • How to disable admin-style browsable interface of django-rest-framework?
    I am using django-rest-framework. It provides an awesome Django admin style browsable self-documenting API. But anyone can visit those pages and use the interface to add data (POST). How can I disable it? Source: over 3 years ago

soapUI mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of soapUI yet. Tracking of soapUI recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Django REST framework and soapUI, you can also consider the following products

Postman - The Collaboration Platform for API Development

Amazon API Gateway - Create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale

Sauce Labs - Test mobile or web apps instantly across 700+ browser/OS/device platform combinations - without infrastructure setup.

Apigee - Intelligent and complete API platform

TestComplete - TestComplete Desktop, Web, and Mobile helps you create repeatable and accurate automated tests across multiple devices, platforms, and environments easily and quickly.

Apiary - Collaborative design, instant API mock, generated documentation, integrated code samples, debugging and automated testing