If you've ever requested a quote for a Python application, you've probably heard both names. Django and FastAPI . They're friends, but they do slightly different things — and guess what? For most companies, the choice is easier than it sounds.
In short
- Django — "all-inclusive" framework: admin, authentication, ORM, forms, sessions. Build complete applications without reinventing anything.
- FastAPI — minimalist and very fast framework for APIs. Great when you want to serve data to other systems (mobile, separate frontend, other services).
When you choose Django
Django is the answer when:
- You need an admin panel automatically generated from templates.
- You build an application with users, roles, permissions — Django already has it all.
- You want stability and a huge community (it's used by Instagram, Pinterest, Mozilla).
- The application directly serves HTML pages to users (not just JSON to someone else).
When you choose FastAPI
FastAPI shines when:
- You want a fast API that is consumed by a mobile app, SPA frontend, or other service.
- Performance matters (FastAPI is among the fastest Python frameworks — native async concurrency).
- You build microservices — each service is small, focused, with a single purpose.
- You want Swagger / OpenAPI documentation automatically generated from your code.
Our simple rule: if "what the user sees" is an HTML page — Django. If it's a mobile app or a React dashboard — FastAPI.
The combination that works
In larger projects, we use them together:
- Django for the admin panel (complex models, relationships, permissions).
- FastAPI for the public API consumed by the mobile app.
Shared database (PostgreSQL), two separate services, each good at what it does.
What doesn't matter
If you have 50 users, you don't look at benchmarks of 10,000 requests per second. Both Django and FastAPI handle that volume with ease. The real difference comes in maintainability and development speed — not in the number of microseconds.
Don't know which one to choose for your project? Send us your idea on the contact form or use the quote calculator — we'll tell you which stack makes sense and why.