Ruby on Rails (RoR) and Django are two of the most popular frameworks for web-app development today. In terms of efficiency, speed, and community support, they are very similar.
Both developers and managers can be wondering what is the best option. The answer will depend on their priorities, as each framework excels in different areas. However, the similarities outweigh the differences.
How are Django and RoR alike?
Django and Rails have many similarities. For example, both frameworks use object-oriented languages (Python in the case of Django, and Ruby in the case of RoR) that have broad community support thanks to the fact that they are open source. Thanks to this, there is extensive documentation that is easy to consult.
RoR and Django already have a long history in web development, so both platforms are quite mature. RoR was released in 2003 and released as open-source in 2004. Meanwhile, Django was released in 2005 and has enjoyed wide popularity ever since.
Django and RoR also share the MVC architecture (Model, View, Controller). Although these differ a bit in format, they are minor details, but they retain the same structure to order the controls, models, and views.
In terms of development principles, they both share the Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle.
How does RoR beat Django?
A common myth: Django is better than RoR because it uses Python, and Python performs better than Ruby.
Sometimes it is common to hear that Django is a better option because Python has a better performance. However, the difference between the two languages is almost unnoticeable.
If your priority is to develop an application that responds to thousands of users at the same time, then neither of these frameworks is your option, since configuring Python and Ruby to handle that many requests require more effort.
In comparisons made between RoR and Django in terms of speed and performance, it turns out that Rails is 0.7% faster than Django. RoR achieves this small difference thanks to its repository and plugins created to improve its performance.
For quality control, RoR offers better support for testing applications, with its built-in testing environment.
Read also: How to create tests in Ruby on Rails? (Part 1)
How does Django beat RoR?
In terms of stability, Python offers a more conventional approach, which is why it wins in this area. However, RoR offers acceptable stability, leaving room for creativity and innovation.
Django offers far less hassle for installation than RoR. For the RoR installation, the developer needs to understand first how to use bundle and gems to install the web-app packages.
Django also has NASA’s seal of guarantee for security; that has adopted the framework. Django offers protection against SQL injections, among other things, although RoR is not that far behind.
When it comes to templates for HTML, Django wins by allowing developers to create them with minimal HTML skills, while views in Rails tend to be more complicated.
For some companies, Django using Python is a key point to prefer it over Rails. Thanks to the simple syntax of Python, many developers know how to use it, and it is easier to find talent who can adopt Django without much trouble.