What are the differences between django-tastypie a

Question

Why would you use one over the other, for exposing an API for your Django app?

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/djangorestframework/

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-tastypie

Answer 1

Well, Tastypie and DRF both are excellent choices. You simply can’t go wrong with either of them. (I haven’t worked on Piston ever; and its kind of not trending anymore now a days so won’t / can’t comment on it. Taken for Granted.). In my humble opinion: Choice should be made on yours (and your tech team’s) skills, knowledge and capabilities. Rather than on what TastyPie and DRF offers, unless off-course you are building something really big like Quora, Facebook or Google.

Personally, I ended up starting working first on TastyPie at a time when I didn’t even know django properly. It all made sense at that time, only knowing REST and HTTP very well but with almost no or little knowledge about django. Because my only intention was to build RESTful APIs in no time which were to be consumed in mobile devices. So if you are just like ‘I happen to be at that time called django-new-bie’, Don’t think more go for TastyPie.

But if you have many years of experience working with Django, knows it inside out and very comfortable using advanced concepts (like Class Based Views, Forms, Model Validator, QuerySet, Manager and Model Instances and how all they interact with one another), **go for DRF. **DFR is bases on django’s class based views. DRF is idiomatic django. Its like you are writing model forms, validators etc. (Well, idiomatic django is no where near to idiomatic python. If you are python expert but have no experience with Django then you might be having hard time initially fit into idiomatic django philosophy and for that matter DRF as well). DRF comes with lots of inbuilt magic methods just like django. If you love the django magical methods and philosophy **DRF **is just for you.

Now, just to answer the exact question:

Tastypie:

Advantages:

1. Easy to get started with and provide basic functionalities OOB (out of the box)
2. Most of the time you won’t be dealing with Advanced Django concepts like CBVs, Forms etc
3. More readable code and less of magic!
4. If your models are NON-ORM, go for it.

Disadvantages:

1. Doesn’t strictly follow idiomatic Django (mind well python and django’s philosophies are quite different)
2. Probably bit tough to customize APIs once you go big
3. No O-Auth

DRF:

1. Follow idiomatic django. (If you know django inside out, and very comfortable with CBV, Forms etc without any doubt go for it)
2. Provides out of the box REST functionality using ModelViewSets. At the same time, provides greater control for customization using CustomSerializer, APIView, GenericViews etc.
3. Better authentication. Easier to write custom permission classes. Work very well and importantly very easy to make it work with 3rd party libraries and OAuth. DJANGO-REST-AUTH is worth mentioning LIBRARY for Auth/SocialAuthentication/Registration. (https://github.com/Tivix/django-rest-auth)

Disadvantages:

1. If you don’t know Django very well, don’t go for this.
2. Magic! Some time very hard to understand magic. Because its been written on top of django’s CBV which are in turn quite complex in nature. (https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/6735)
3. Has steep learning curve.

Personally what would I use in my next project?

• Now, I am no more a fan of MAGIC and Out-of-box functionalities. Because all they come at a *great cost. * Assuming I have all choices and control over project time and budget, I would start with something light weight like RESTLess (https://github.com/toastdriven/restless) (created by the creator of TastyPie and django-haystack (http://haystacksearch.org/)). And for the same matter probably/definately choose the lightweight web framework like Flask.

• But why? - More readable, simple and manageable idiomatic python (aka pythonic) code. Though more code but eventually provide great flexibility and customization.

  • Explicit is better than implicit.
  • Simple is better than complex.
  • Complex is better than complicated.
  • Flat is better than nested.
  • Sparse is better than dense.
  • Readability counts.
  • Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.

What if you have only no choice but Django and one of TastyPie and DRF?

• Now, knowing the Django reasonably well, I will go with **DRF. **
• Why? - idiomatic djagno! (I don’t love it though). Better OAuth and 3rd party integration (django-rest-auth is my favorite).

Then why you chose the DRF/TastyPie at first place?

• Mostly I have worked with startups and small firms, which are tight on budget and time; and need to deliver something quick and usable. Django serve this purpose very well. (I am not at all saying that django is not scalable. There are websites like Quora, Disquss, Youtube etc run on it. But all it require time and more then average skills)

I hope, it will help you to take better decision.

Other references - 1. The State of Tastypie (http://toastdriven.com/blog/2014/may/23/state-tastypie/) 2. What are the differences between django-tastypie and djangorestframework? (What are the differences between django-tastypie and djangorestframework?)