| Aspect | Django | FastAPI |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Batteries included: ORM, migrations, admin, auth, templates | A small core for APIs, you pick the rest |
| Main use | Server-rendered web apps and APIs (via Django REST framework or Ninja) | REST and JSON APIs, microservices |
| Validation and docs | Forms and serializers, schema via extra packages | Pydantic validation, OpenAPI and Swagger UI generated automatically |
| Async | Async views and ASGI supported, but the ORM is mostly synchronous | Async by default on ASGI (Starlette) |
| ORM and database | Built-in ORM with migrations | None of its own: SQLAlchemy or SQLModel plus Alembic |
| Admin panel | Ready out of the box, a major strength | None, you build one or use a third-party tool |
| Maturity | Over 20 years old, very stable and predictable | Younger, evolves quickly |
| Best for | Content sites, CRMs, internal systems, MVPs with an admin | Fast APIs, ML services, microservices |
Choose Django when
- You need a whole app with admin, auth and a database.
- You value stability and ready-made solutions.
- You want to make as few architecture decisions as possible.
Choose FastAPI when
- You are building a pure API or a microservice.
- You want types, validation and docs with no effort.
- Lots of async I/O, such as calls to other services.
Bottom line
For a web app with an admin and a database, Django saves months. For API services and ML wrappers, FastAPI is more convenient. They are often combined in different parts of one system.
Compared
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