FastAPI vs Flask vs Django comparison - Hands-On Comparison

FastAPI vs Flask vs Django Comparison

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple web API to manage a list of books. You want to understand how to create this API using three popular Python web frameworks: FastAPI, Flask, and Django. This project will guide you step-by-step to create a basic API endpoint in FastAPI, then compare its structure and features with Flask and Django.

🎯 Goal: Create a FastAPI application with a simple endpoint to list books. Learn how to set up initial data, configure a route, implement the main logic to return data, and finalize the app. Understand the differences in setup and usage compared to Flask and Django.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list of books as initial data

Add a configuration variable for API version

Implement a GET endpoint to return the list of books

Complete the FastAPI app with proper route and run configuration

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Web APIs are common in many applications like online stores, social media, and data services. FastAPI, Flask, and Django are popular tools to build these APIs efficiently.

💼 Career

Understanding these frameworks helps you work on backend development roles, build scalable APIs, and collaborate with frontend teams.

1

DATA SETUP: Create the initial list of books

Create a list called books with these exact dictionaries: {'id': 1, 'title': '1984', 'author': 'George Orwell'} and {'id': 2, 'title': 'Brave New World', 'author': 'Aldous Huxley'}.

FastAPI

# Create the list of books with two dictionaries
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list with two dictionaries exactly as shown.

2

CONFIGURATION: Add API version variable

Add a string variable called api_version and set it to 'v1'.

FastAPI

books = [
    {'id': 1, 'title': '1984', 'author': 'George Orwell'},
    {'id': 2, 'title': 'Brave New World', 'author': 'Aldous Huxley'}
]
# Add the api_version variable below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just create a variable named api_version and assign the string 'v1'.

3

CORE LOGIC: Create FastAPI app and GET endpoint

Import FastAPI from fastapi. Create an app instance called app. Use @app.get decorator with path f'/api/{api_version}/books' to define a function get_books that returns the books list.

FastAPI

books = [
    {'id': 1, 'title': '1984', 'author': 'George Orwell'},
    {'id': 2, 'title': 'Brave New World', 'author': 'Aldous Huxley'}
]

api_version = 'v1'

# Import FastAPI and create app instance
# Define GET endpoint to return books
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember to import FastAPI, create app, and use the decorator with the formatted path.

4

COMPLETION: Add code to run the FastAPI app

Add the standard if __name__ == '__main__': block. Inside it, import uvicorn and run the app with uvicorn.run(app, host='127.0.0.1', port=8000).

FastAPI

from fastapi import FastAPI

books = [
    {'id': 1, 'title': '1984', 'author': 'George Orwell'},
    {'id': 2, 'title': 'Brave New World', 'author': 'Aldous Huxley'}
]

api_version = 'v1'

app = FastAPI()

@app.get(f"/api/{api_version}/books")
def get_books():
    return books

# Add code to run the app with uvicorn
# Your code here

Need a hint?

This block lets you run the FastAPI app directly with Python.