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Spring Framework VS FastAPI

Compare Spring Framework VS FastAPI and see what are their differences

Spring Framework logo Spring Framework

The Spring Framework provides a comprehensive programming and configuration model for modern Java-based enterprise applications - on any kind of deployment platform.

FastAPI logo FastAPI

FastAPI is an Open Source, modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints.
  • Spring Framework Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-18
  • FastAPI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-14

Spring Framework features and specs

  • Comprehensive Ecosystem
    Spring Framework provides a vast array of tools and modules which address various aspects of application development such as security, data access, and messaging. This helps in building robust enterprise applications.
  • Inversion of Control (IoC) Container
    Spring's IoC container promotes loose coupling by managing object lifecycles and dependencies, making the code more modular and testable.
  • Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP)
    Spring's AOP module allows for separating cross-cutting concerns like logging, transaction management, and security, making the code cleaner and more maintainable.
  • Spring Boot
    Spring Boot streamlines the setup and development of new Spring applications with built-in configurations and convention over configuration, reducing boilerplate code and speeding up development time.
  • Large Community and Support
    Spring has a large and active community, extensive documentation, and a wide selection of online resources which make it easier to find support and solutions to common problems.
  • Integration Capabilities
    Spring Framework offers seamless integration with various other technologies and frameworks, including Hibernate for ORM, Apache Kafka for messaging, and more.

Possible disadvantages of Spring Framework

  • Complexity
    Spring Framework can be complex and have a steep learning curve, especially for newcomers who are not familiar with its extensive set of features and configurations.
  • Configuration Overhead
    Although Spring Boot reduces the configuration burden, traditional Spring applications may still require extensive XML or annotation-based configurations, which can be cumbersome.
  • Performance Overhead
    The flexibility and the modular nature of Spring can introduce some performance overhead compared to more lightweight solutions, which could be a concern in highly performance-sensitive applications.
  • Version Incompatibility
    Upgrading between different versions of the Spring Framework and its associated projects can sometimes lead to compatibility issues and necessitate significant code changes.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies in a large Spring application can become complicated, particularly when dealing with multiple modules and third-party libraries, potentially leading to dependency conflicts.

FastAPI features and specs

  • High Performance
    Built on Starlette and Pydantic, FastAPI is one of the fastest frameworks for Python, providing high performance due to its asynchronous request handling.
  • Automatic Interactive API Documentation
    FastAPI automatically generates interactive API documentation via Swagger UI and ReDoc, which are very helpful for development and testing.
  • Type Checking and Validation
    With Pydantic models and Python type hints, FastAPI provides automatic data validation and type checking, reducing the chance of runtime errors.
  • Ease of Use
    Its syntax and design make it easy to learn for Python developers, offering a smooth development experience while reducing boilerplate code.
  • Asynchronous Support
    FastAPI supports asynchronous programming, allowing for better performance for I/O-bound operations, making it optimal for handling many simultaneous connections.
  • Extensive Documentation
    It has comprehensive and well-structured documentation, which is very useful for both beginners and advanced users.
  • Community and Ecosystem
    FastAPI has a growing community and ecosystem, with many plugins and integrations available to extend its functionality.

Possible disadvantages of FastAPI

  • Learning Curve for Asynchronous Programming
    Although FastAPI itself is easy to learn, grasping the concepts of asynchronous programming in Python can be challenging for beginners.
  • Complex Dependencies
    Using Pydantic for advanced validation can make the request models complex, requiring a deeper understanding of Pydantic and its functionalities.
  • Early Stage Libraries
    Some third-party libraries and extensions specifically tailored for FastAPI might still be in early stages of development and lack long-term stability.
  • Limited Real-World Examples
    Although the documentation is extensive, there might be limited real-world examples and case studies readily available compared to more mature frameworks.
  • Deployment Complexity
    Deploying FastAPI applications might be more complex in comparison to traditional synchronous frameworks, mainly due to the need for asynchronous server setups.

Analysis of Spring Framework

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Spring Framework is generally considered a good framework with robust features, strong community support, and extensive documentation, making it a reliable choice for Java developers working on complex, enterprise-level applications.

Why this product is good

  • Features
    Spring provides a wide range of features including dependency injection, aspect-oriented programming, transaction management, and integration with various tools and technologies.
  • Community
    Spring has a large and active community, which contributes to a wealth of resources, documentation, and third-party extensions.
  • Popularity
    Spring Framework is one of the most popular frameworks for Java development, widely used in building enterprise applications.
  • Versatility
    It offers a comprehensive programming and configuration model for modern Java-based enterprise applications, on any kind of deployment platform.

Recommended for

  • Developers building large-scale, enterprise-grade applications.
  • Teams looking for a mature and well-supported framework with a large ecosystem.
  • Projects that require integration with popular Java technologies and tools.
  • Developers focusing on microservices architecture, as Spring Boot simplifies the development of microservices.

Analysis of FastAPI

Overall verdict

  • FastAPI is widely regarded as a good choice, especially for applications that require high performance, scalability, and modern Python features. It is suitable for both simple and complex projects, making it a versatile tool in the web development ecosystem.

Why this product is good

  • FastAPI is a modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python 3.7+ based on standard Python type hints. It is built on top of Starlette for web framework capabilities and Pydantic for data validation and settings management. FastAPI is known for its excellent performance, automatic generation of interactive API documentation (with Swagger and Redoc), and support for asynchronous programming. Developers appreciate its ease of use, detailed documentation, and helpful error messages.

Recommended for

  • Developers building RESTful APIs
  • Teams looking for a high-performance ASGI-based web framework
  • Projects that require asynchronous programming capabilities
  • Applications needing automatic generation of interactive API documentation
  • Python developers who prefer utilizing type hints for code clarity and validation

Spring Framework videos

What is the Spring framework really all about?

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Spring Framework Tutorial | Full Course

FastAPI videos

FastAPI from the ground up

More videos:

  • Tutorial - 30 Days of Python - Day 14 - Web App with Flask, FastAPI, ngrok, and Invictify - Python TUTORIAL
  • Review - [PT] Python - API com FastAPI - Chat | twitch.tv/codeshow

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Spring Framework and FastAPI)
Developer Tools
31 31%
69% 69
Web Frameworks
47 47%
53% 53
JavaScript Tools
100 100%
0% 0
API Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Spring Framework and FastAPI

Spring Framework Reviews

Top 9 best Frameworks for web development
Spring offers a wide range of frameworks, such as an MVC framework, a data access framework and a transaction management framework. With its focus on scalability and security, Spring is an excellent choice.
Source: www.kiwop.com
17 Popular Java Frameworks for 2023: Pros, cons, and more
Therefore, the configuration, setup, build, and deployment processes all require multiple steps you might not want to deal with, especially if youโ€™re working on a smaller project. Spring Boot (a micro framework that runs on top of the Spring Framework) is a solution for this problem, as it allows you to set up your Spring application faster, with much less configuration.
Source: raygun.com
Top 10 Phoenix Framework Alternatives
Spring Framework is an open-source app framework and inversion of control container for the Java platform, providing the infrastructure required to develop Java and web apps on top of the Java EE platform.
10 Best Java Frameworks You Should Know
Spring Framework is one of the most extensively used, top-notch, lightweight software application frameworks built for software design, development, and deployment in Java.

FastAPI Reviews

The 20 Best Laravel Alternatives for Web Development
FastAPI, as the name hints, is a swift mover. Built on Starlette, itโ€™s all about speed and performance with Python. Crafting API masterpieces at the speed of light, now thatโ€™s something.
25 Python Frameworks to Master
Since its release in 2018, it has rapidly gained popularity due to its great performance and simplicity. In fact, according to PyPi Stats, FastAPI has over 9 million monthly downloads, surpassing even full-stack frameworks like Django.
Source: kinsta.com
3 Web Frameworks to Use With Python
myapp/ is the main directory of your FastAPI application. It includes all the other files and directories needed for the application.static/ is a directory used to store static assets such as CSS, JavaScript, and image files. These assets are served directly by the web server and are typically used to add visual styling and interactivity to the application.css/, img/, js/...
Best Alternatives to FastAPI App Free for Windows (2021)
FastAPI Alternative โ€“ So many alternatives app to FastAPI that you must to know out there. And, looking for an ideal software was not easy matter. Lucky you, at this page you can find the best replacement app for FastAPI. So what you are waiting for, get the latest FastAPI alternative app for Windows 10 from this page.
Top 5 Back-End Frameworks to Consider for Web Development in 2021
FastAPI is a modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints. It is fast when compared to other major Python frameworks like Flask and Django. FastAPI gives great flexibility to fulfill businessesโ€™ API needs in todayโ€™s evolving world.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, FastAPI seems to be a lot more popular than Spring Framework. While we know about 298 links to FastAPI, we've tracked only 13 mentions of Spring Framework. 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.

Spring Framework mentions (13)

  • March 2025 Java Key Updates in Boot, Security, and More
    The release of Spring Framework 6.2.5 includes:. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Getting Started with Spring Boot 3 for .NET Developers
    Spring Framework 6: https://spring.io/projects/spring-framework. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Want to Get Better at Java? Go Old School.
    We had to write our own frameworks (uphill, both ways) but most current frameworks will have similar documentation pages as well. Both Apache and Spring are especially good at that. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Best Frameworks For Web Development
    Framework link: https://spring.io/projects/spring-framework Github Link: https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework. - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
  • What to you do now?
    A common used Java framework is Spring framework (ie https://spring.io/projects/spring-framework and short tutorials at https://www.baeldung.com/spring-intro). Source: about 3 years ago
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FastAPI mentions (298)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Spring Framework and FastAPI, you can also consider the following products

Grails - An Open Source, full stack, web application framework for the JVM

Django - The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines

Flask - a microframework for Python based on Werkzeug, Jinja 2 and good intentions.

ASP.NET - ASP.NET is a free web framework for building great Web sites and Web applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

ExpressJS - Sinatra inspired web development framework for node.js -- insanely fast, flexible, and simple

CodeBehind Framework - CodeBehind is a new framework based on .NET Core version 7.0. The CodeBehind framework inherits all the features of .NET Core and gives it more simplicity and flexibility. CodeBehind framework is owned by Elanat.