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How to GraphQL VS Django REST framework

Compare How to GraphQL VS Django REST framework and see what are their differences

How to GraphQL logo How to GraphQL

Open-source tutorial website to learn GraphQL development

Django REST framework logo Django REST framework

Django REST framework is a toolkit for building web APIs.
  • How to GraphQL Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-19
  • Django REST framework Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-18

How to GraphQL features and specs

  • Comprehensive Resource
    How to GraphQL provides a thorough introduction and deep dive into GraphQL, covering a wide range of topics from basic concepts to advanced usage, making it a great resource for both beginners and experienced developers.
  • Interactive Tutorials
    The platform offers interactive tutorials that allow users to practice and experiment with GraphQL queries and mutations directly in a sandbox environment, enhancing the learning experience.
  • Multi-language Support
    How to GraphQL offers tutorials in multiple programming languages, such as JavaScript, Python, and Ruby, allowing developers to learn in the language they are most comfortable with.
  • Community Contributions
    Being open-source, it allows contributions from the community, which helps keep the content up-to-date with current best practices and emerging tools.
  • Free Access
    All the educational content on How to GraphQL is freely accessible, providing valuable learning resources to developers without any financial barriers.

Possible disadvantages of How to GraphQL

  • Steep Learning Curve for Beginners
    While comprehensive, the sheer amount of information and technical depth may be overwhelming for absolute beginners who are not familiar with API design and development.
  • Varied Content Quality
    Due to its open-source nature with community contributions, the quality and depth of articles and tutorials can vary, possibly leading to inconsistencies or gaps in knowledge.
  • Limited Real-world Use Cases
    The tutorials and examples sometimes lack real-world application and business context, which could make it challenging for learners to see how GraphQL fits into a larger system architecture.
  • Dependence on External Tools
    Some tutorials rely heavily on external tools or libraries that may distract from understanding the core concepts of GraphQL itself, making it harder for learners to grasp fundamentals without those tools.

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.

Analysis of Django REST framework

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Django REST Framework is considered a good choice for building APIs, especially if you are already using Django for your web application. It offers a well-designed, comprehensive toolkit that streamlines the process of API development.

Why this product is good

  • Django REST Framework (DRF) is widely appreciated for its ease of use, extensive documentation, and flexibility. It integrates seamlessly with Django, a popular web framework, offering powerful features such as authentication, serialization, and viewsets. DRF also supports RESTful API architecture, which is a standard in web development, allowing developers to build robust APIs efficiently. Its strong community support and numerous plugins extend its capabilities, making it a solid choice for both small and large projects.

Recommended for

  • Developers familiar with Django who want to build APIs.
  • Projects that require a robust and scalable API solution.
  • Teams seeking a well-documented and community-supported framework.
  • Use cases where integration with Django's authentication and ORM features is beneficial.

How to GraphQL videos

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Django REST framework videos

Django Vs Django Rest Framework 2020

More videos:

  • Review - Getting Started With Django REST Framework

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to How to GraphQL and Django REST framework)
GraphQL
100 100%
0% 0
API Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
APIs
33 33%
67% 67

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Django REST framework should be more popular than How to GraphQL. 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.

How to GraphQL mentions (2)

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: about 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

What are some alternatives?

When comparing How to GraphQL and Django REST framework, you can also consider the following products

Hasura - Hasura is an open platform to build scalable app backends, offering a built-in database, search, user-management and more.

Postman - The Collaboration Platform for API Development

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GraphQL Playground - GraphQL IDE for better development workflows

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