What are Django, Ruby on Rails, and Laravel?

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Django

Django is a web-framework that is built using Python. Developed in 2005 by Django Software Foundation, Django is an exceptional open-source framework because of its stand-alone features for development and testing. Django makes it easier to handle web applications which get complex over time.

The Django project is represented as an app. You can combine different applications to build a more scalable and functional system with separate application modules that will not interfere with each other. The key Django’s philosophy implies that the final code is pretty verbose so it can be read by the developer who has no working experience with a particular product.

Who Should Use Django?

To limit the use of Django to a certain industry type would be unfair. It is one of the most established and rapidly growing frameworks that can serve the simplest of website and app development tasks. However, since the primary focus of the framework is to simplify tasks, it is recommended for businesses with huge databases and users. Django is adept at handling huge media files, text posts content, immense interactions, and growing user base. Ecommerce websites, healthcare and financial booking platforms, social media sites transport businesses with an online booking system, etc. use Django. To put it simply, Django is a good choice for businesses with big databases and higher amounts of traffic/interactions.

In addition, busnisses looking to invest in SEO must consider choosing Django. SEO comes naturally to Django, meaning the framework has lots of out-of-the-box SEO tools like django-meta for managing descriptions and titles, django-robots for managing robots.txt files, a sitemap framework for making sitemap XML files, and a redirects app for saving URL redirects in a database and managing them.

Django is great for any web development project.

Laravel

Laravel is a PHP web framework that follows the MVC architectural pattern. It may be the youngest of the three frameworks considered here, but that doesn’t make it a weaker instrument. Laravel helps developers implement complex functionality with little effort.

In the first release, Laravel featured built-in authentication, localization, routing, sessions, views, models, and other tools. Laravel gained traction by being in the right place, at the right time. At that point, other PHP frameworks offered either poor documentation or complex features. Laravel, on the contrary, was easy to use, and provided great documentation, too.

Who Should Use Laravel?

Laravel is great for small and large web projects. It is very secure, but it also depends on the developers to fully optimize its security features. Its MVC architectural pattern makes it easy to work on large web projects by helping organize unstructured code. Contrary to the belief that PHP and laravel are slowly becoming outdated, it is still very much alive and constantly evolving. Companies or businesses that are looking for well-structured and extensive web development projects should definitely explore the Laravel framework.

Ruby on Rails (RoR)

Ruby on Rails, or simply Rails, is a web framework introduced in 2004, written in the Ruby programming language, “the most extraordinarily beautiful and luxurious language,” according to David Heinemeier Hansson. With Rails, app development becomes easy and fun.

Who Should Use RoR?

Ruby is a mature and dynamic general programming language. Ruby on Rails is a framework that is best suited for companies that have projects to finish in a cost-effective and time saving manner. If you are looking to build a Minimum Viable product for your business, Ruby on Rails is a good choice despite more popular and established frameworks such as Django (which is certainly not cost-effective for a MVP). Additionally, RoR is a great choice for social media applications.

Top Companies Using Django, Laravel, and RoR

Similarities Among the Three Frameworks

-Dynamic Typing: Python, PHP and Rails are dynamically typed languages, in which variables must necessarily be defined before they are used.

-Rapid Development: All the three frameworks provide tools that help build web applications and websites faster.

-Open-source: The three frameworks follow the MVC model, which helps web developers to access the source codes, for reusability and accessibility, with great ease.

-Multiple-platform Support: In the current digital-first world, we need to develop softwares for all types of devices. The three frameworks not only accelerate the time needed to develop applications, but also ensure that those applications can be used over multiple platforms.

-Extensive Ecosystem: Each of the three frameworks have a large community of users, and are top picks for innumerable developers.

Comparing the Frameworks on Different Factors

Installation

Installing the Django web framework for development is really easy and can be done within a minute. Django is a really flexible framework which doesn’t need previous configurations and can be modified as you make progress. However, installing for example Ruby on Rails is a little challenging as it requires the knowledge of Gems and Bundles, which are necessary for installation. Ruby on Rails projects are built in an environment that needs to be set up at the beginning with the default requirements. First, you need to install the Command Gem which is then used to run Rails and install the Ruby on Rails development framework.

Security

Security is one of the most crucial features when developing applications. Each framework uses particular mechanisms to ensure security.

For Django, security is a priority. The fact that NASA uses the Django framework demonstrates that security is Django’s strong suit. Ruby on Rails and Laravel lag in this regard. Django provides developers with the tools to keep your app safe from security-related issues like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), and clickjacking. It’s excellent at user authentication, authorization, and administration, allowing you to manage users and identify user roles and permissions. The Django community also does a great job at delivering regular updates not only to the official distribution but also to third-party distributions.

Rails provides out-of-the-box functionality to address security issues like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), clickjacking, script injection, and insecure direct object references.

Laravel, like other PHP frameworks, is quite vulnerable. Still, it includes functionality for authentication and authorization, encryption, email verification, hashing, and resetting passwords to reduce some security issues. In addition, Laravel provides packages to improve security: Laravel Security, Laravel Security Component, and Laravel ACL.

Performance

Django performance is slower than Laravel but faster than Rails. In the plaintext responses test, Django performs better than Laravel and Rails. When it comes to JSON serialization, Django is the leading framework, followed by Rails and Laravel. In the single query test, Django shows the best result, whereas in the multiple queries test, Laravel outdoes Rails and Django.

Ecosystem

The Django ecosystem comprises 4,000 packages, of which the most popular ones are The Django Rest Framework, for implementing REST APIs, The Debug Toolbar, for displaying debugging information, Django Allauth, for account authentication via Facebook, Twitter, and Google, and more.

The Laravel ecosystem comprises 15,700 packages, among which the popular ones are Cashier for Braintree and Stripe integrations, Homestead for Vagrant, Forge for development, and more.

Rails includes hundreds of gems with reusable codes, a set of library extensions and utility classes called Active support, frameworks including Active Job, Action Cable for integrating WebSockets, et cetera.

Cost of developers

Rails and Django developers are probably middle of the pack in this comparison. Not terribly expensive or tough to find, but not really cheap either. Since PHP is so popular, and Laravel is quickly becoming the defacto framework for web apps in PHP these developers are very inexpensive. A big plus in the Laravel column for sure.  

Community

Django, Rails, and Laravel all have large communities and great documentation.

-The Django community is rich, active, supportive, and rapidly growing. As of March 2019, it comprised 11,685 people from 166 countries. It consists of mailing lists and blogs (DjangoTricks, Django Community, Simple is better than complex), a website for sharing snippets of code (Djangosnippets), educational resources (The official tutorial on the Django Software Foundation website, Django Girls), a directory of Django packages (Django Packages), and a jobs website (Django Jobs).

-According to the official Rails website, over 4,500 people have already contributed code to Rails. It has a big community and its own mailing list (Ruby on Rails: Talk), weekly newsletter (This week in Rails), Slack community (Ruby on Rails Link), annual conferences (including RailsConf), screencast tutorials platform (GoRails), community on Stack Overflow, and Ruby-forum.com online community.

-The Laravel community consists of educational resources (Laracasts, Test-Driven Laravel, Learning Laravel), a community portal and forum (Laravel.io), an official blog (Laravel News), a Slack community (Lara#hat), an employment website (LaraJobs), and a directory of Laravel packages (Packalyst).

The Final Verdict:

You can clearly see from the arguments and reasoning above it is difficult to choose one among the three as they come with their own incentives and downsides. However,

I believe that Python and Django are the top choice for app development. 

At Ositcom, we work closely with the three frameworks. Our developers have strong experience in building applications using Django, Laravel and Ruby on Rails.