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Web Frameworks for Python

A Web framework is a collection of packages or modules which allow developers to write Web applications (see WebApplications) or services without having to handle such low-level details as protocols, sockets or process/thread management.

The majority of Web frameworks are exclusively server-side technology, although, with the increased prevalence of AJAX, some Web frameworks are beginning to include AJAX code that helps developers with the particularly tricky task of programming (client-side) the user's browser. At the extreme end of the client-side Web Frameworks is technology that can use the web browser as a full-blown application execution environment (a la gmail for example): see Web Browser Programming for details.

As a developer using a framework, you typically write code which conforms to some kind of conventions that lets you "plug in" to the framework, delegating responsibility for the communications, infrastructure and low-level stuff to the framework while concentrating on the logic of the application in your own code. This "plugging in" aspect of Web development is often seen as being in opposition to the classical distinction between programs and libraries, and the notion of a "mainloop" dispatching events to application code is very similar to that found in GUI programming.

Generally, frameworks provide support for a number of activities such as interpreting requests (getting form parameters, handling cookies and sessions), producing responses (presenting data as HTML or in other formats), storing data persistently, and so on. Since a non-trivial Web application will require a number of different kinds of abstractions, often stacked upon each other, those frameworks which attempt to provide a complete solution for applications are often known as full-stack frameworks in that they attempt to supply components for each layer in the stack.

Many frameworks now provide an element of customization in their support for the above activities and abstractions, utilizing components in that they provide abstractions only for certain specific things. As a result, it can be possible for you to build your own full-stack framework almost entirely from existing components.

A web application may use a combination of a base HTTP application server, a storage mechanism such as a database, a template engine, a request dispatcher, an authentication module and an AJAX toolkit. These can be individual components or be provided together in a high-level framework.

These are the most popular high-level frameworks. Many of them include components listed on the WebComponents page.

See below for some other arguably less popular full-stack frameworks!

Content Management Systems

Content management systems (CMS) often allow you to build application like functionality upon them and typically provide many of the facilities seen in full-stack frameworks. See ContentManagementSystems for more details.

Web Components

Some frameworks promote interoperable components for things like templating/output and authentication/authorization, and so you might see users of different frameworks actually using the same component or library. See WebComponents for details of such components.

Web Client Frameworks

In contrast to server-oriented frameworks which may offer AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) support by serving pre-packaged JavaScript components and offering server-side support for requests made by such JavaScript components, Web client frameworks take more direct advantage of JavaScript, potentially compiling Python code into JavaScript or by embedding a Python interpreter into the Web browser itself, with the result in some cases being Web browser engines running within customised applications. See Web Browser Programming for details.

Other Full-Stack Frameworks

These frameworks also provide most, if not all of the technology stack. However, they are regarded as not being as popular as the frameworks listed above.

Basic Frameworks

These projects provide the base "application server", either running as its own independent process, upon Apache or in other environments. On many of these you can then introduce your own choice of templating engines and other components to run on top, although some may provide technologies for parts of the technology stack.

Basic Frameworks Providing Templating

Discontinued/Inactive Frameworks

The following frameworks are either discontinued, in that their developers may have stated that they no longer maintain the code, or appear to be inactively developed or maintained, in that the Web site for the project has remained unchanged for an extended period of time.

Books and Articles

Editorial Note

The above lists should be arranged in ascending alphabetical order - please respect this when adding new solutions. When specifying release dates please use the format YYYY-MM-DD.

Some special notes to contributors to this page who like to assume an advocacy position when "reorganising" the content:

And some basic editing advice: use the preview button when making edits, rather than leaving tens of micro-changes in the history.

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