Django vs FastAPI: Which Python Framework Should You Choose in 2026?

Python has two dominant web frameworks pulling developers in different directions. Django, the batteries-included veteran, gives you everything from ORM to admin panel out of the box. FastAPI, the modern async contender, gives you speed, automatic documentation, and type safety from day one.

They are not in direct competition — they solve different problems. This guide breaks down what each framework does best, where each falls short, and how to choose the right one for your next project in 2026.

Django vs FastAPI at a Glance

Neither framework is universally better. The right choice depends on what you are building.

Architecture

Django: Model-Template-View

Django follows the MTV pattern — Model, Template, View. The framework makes opinionated decisions so you can move quickly without configuring every layer yourself.

The built-in ORM maps Python classes to database tables. The Django admin panel auto-generates a management interface from your models with zero additional code. The auth system handles users, groups, permissions, and session management natively.

This monolithic architecture is a strength when you need the full stack. It becomes friction when you only need an API layer.

FastAPI: Pydantic Models and Dependency Injection

FastAPI is built around two pillars: Pydantic for data validation and type enforcement, and a dependency injection system for clean separation of concerns.

Request and response schemas are defined as Pydantic models. FastAPI reads your type hints and automatically generates OpenAPI documentation, validates incoming data, and serializes outgoing responses. There is no separate serializer layer — your types are your contract.

The dependency injection system handles authentication, database sessions, configuration, and any shared logic in a composable, testable way.

Performance

FastAPI is built on Starlette and runs on Uvicorn, an ASGI server. Its async-first design means it can handle thousands of concurrent connections without blocking. Benchmark comparisons consistently place FastAPI among the fastest Python frameworks available, approaching the performance of Node.js and Go for I/O-bound workloads.

Django runs synchronously by default. It added ASGI support and async views in later versions, but most Django codebases — and the Django ORM itself — remain synchronous. Under high concurrency, this creates a bottleneck that Gunicorn workers can only partially offset.

For CPU-bound tasks, the difference is smaller. For I/O-bound workloads — database queries, external API calls, file reads — FastAPI's async model gives it a meaningful throughput advantage.

Django is not slow. It powers Instagram, Pinterest, and Disqus at enormous scale. However, scaling Django typically requires horizontal scaling and more infrastructure, whereas FastAPI can handle more load per instance.

API Development

FastAPI: Type-Driven APIs

FastAPI makes building APIs the primary experience. Define a Pydantic model, annotate your route function, and your API is documented, validated, and ready.

from fastapi import FastAPI
from pydantic import BaseModel

app = FastAPI()

class Item(BaseModel):
    name: str
    price: float
    in_stock: bool = True

@app.post("/items/", response_model=Item)
async def create_item(item: Item):
    return item

@app.get("/items/{item_id}")
async def get_item(item_id: int, q: str | None = None):
    return {"item_id": item_id, "query": q}

Visiting /docs gives you a live, interactive Swagger UI with no additional configuration. Path parameters, query parameters, and request bodies are all validated automatically.

Django: REST Framework Required

Django was not designed for APIs. To build a REST API, you add Django REST Framework (DRF), which introduces serializers, viewsets, and routers as separate layers.

# models.py
from django.db import models

class Item(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    price = models.DecimalField(max_digits=10, decimal_places=2)
    in_stock = models.BooleanField(default=True)

# serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Item

class ItemSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Item
        fields = ["id", "name", "price", "in_stock"]

# views.py
from rest_framework import viewsets
from .models import Item
from .serializers import ItemSerializer

class ItemViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = Item.objects.all()
    serializer_class = ItemSerializer

DRF is powerful and battle-tested. But for pure API development, the indirection of serializers, viewsets, and routers adds boilerplate that FastAPI eliminates with type hints.

Database and ORM

Django ORM

Django's built-in ORM is one of its greatest strengths. Define your models as Python classes and the ORM generates SQL, handles migrations, and provides a query API.

from django.db import models

class Product(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    price = models.DecimalField(max_digits=10, decimal_places=2)
    category = models.ForeignKey("Category", on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    created_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)

    class Meta:
        ordering = ["-created_at"]

# Query
products = Product.objects.filter(category__name="Electronics").select_related("category")

Migrations are tracked automatically. Running python manage.py makemigrations and python manage.py migrate handles schema changes across environments. This workflow is mature, reliable, and familiar to most Python developers.

FastAPI: Bring Your Own ORM

FastAPI does not include database tooling. You choose your own ORM and integrate it through the dependency injection system.

SQLAlchemy is the most common choice for relational databases. Tortoise ORM and SQLModel are popular async-native alternatives.

from sqlalchemy import Column, Integer, String, Float, Boolean
from sqlalchemy.ext.asyncio import AsyncSession, create_async_engine
from sqlalchemy.orm import DeclarativeBase

DATABASE_URL = "postgresql+asyncpg://user:password@localhost/dbname"
engine = create_async_engine(DATABASE_URL)

class Base(DeclarativeBase):
    pass

class Product(Base):
    __tablename__ = "products"
    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
    name = Column(String(200))
    price = Column(Float)
    in_stock = Column(Boolean, default=True)

# Dependency injection for database session
async def get_db():
    async with AsyncSession(engine) as session:
        yield session

The flexibility is valuable in microservice architectures where you might connect to multiple databases or use non-relational storage. But it also means more upfront setup and more decisions to make before writing application logic.

Authentication

Django: Built-In Auth System

Django ships with a complete authentication system. User models, password hashing, login and logout views, session management, and a permissions framework are all included and integrated with the admin panel.

from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
from django.contrib.auth.models import User

@login_required
def dashboard(request):
    return render(request, "dashboard.html", {"user": request.user})

For token-based auth in APIs, DRF adds token and session authentication. Third-party packages like django-allauth and dj-rest-auth extend this for OAuth and JWT flows.

FastAPI: Manual Auth Setup

FastAPI provides the building blocks — OAuth2 flows, HTTP Bearer tokens, dependency injection hooks — but does not prescribe an implementation. You wire up JWT validation yourself or use a library like python-jose.

from fastapi import Depends, HTTPException, status
from fastapi.security import OAuth2PasswordBearer
from jose import JWTError, jwt

oauth2_scheme = OAuth2PasswordBearer(tokenUrl="token")

async def get_current_user(token: str = Depends(oauth2_scheme)):
    credentials_exception = HTTPException(
        status_code=status.HTTP_401_UNAUTHORIZED,
        detail="Could not validate credentials",
        headers={"WWW-Authenticate": "Bearer"},
    )
    try:
        payload = jwt.decode(token, SECRET_KEY, algorithms=[ALGORITHM])
        username: str = payload.get("sub")
        if username is None:
            raise credentials_exception
    except JWTError:
        raise credentials_exception
    return username

This approach is flexible and explicit. It also means writing more code for something Django handles automatically.

Deploying Django and FastAPI on Out Plane

Both frameworks deploy cleanly on Out Plane. The difference is the WSGI/ASGI server you use and the startup command.

Django on Out Plane

Django uses Gunicorn as its production WSGI server. Configure it to bind on port 8080.

pip install gunicorn
gunicorn myproject.wsgi:application --bind 0.0.0.0:8080 --workers 4

Set your environment variables (SECRET_KEY, DATABASE_URL, ALLOWED_HOSTS) through the Out Plane console. Run database migrations as a pre-deploy command or a one-off task.

For the full deployment walkthrough, see the Django deployment guide.

FastAPI on Out Plane

FastAPI uses Uvicorn as its ASGI server. The startup command follows the same pattern.

pip install uvicorn
uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080 --workers 4

For production workloads with multiple workers, consider gunicorn with the Uvicorn worker class:

gunicorn main:app -w 4 -k uvicorn.workers.UvicornWorker --bind 0.0.0.0:8080

For the full deployment walkthrough, see the FastAPI deployment guide.

Both frameworks pick up DATABASE_URL from environment variables and work with Out Plane's managed PostgreSQL instances without additional configuration.

When to Choose Django

Django is the right choice when:

• You are building a full-stack web application with server-rendered HTML
• You need an admin panel to manage data without building a custom dashboard
• Your project involves content management — blogs, e-commerce, editorial workflows
• You want built-in authentication with user management, groups, and permissions
• Your team is large and benefits from Django's strong conventions and mature ecosystem
• You are prototyping quickly and want working auth, admin, and ORM from day one
• You are building a monolith that may add an API layer later via DRF

Django's opinionated structure is a feature for teams that need to move fast without debating architecture decisions. The ecosystem — Django REST Framework, Celery, django-allauth, Wagtail — covers most common application requirements.

When to Choose FastAPI

FastAPI is the right choice when:

• You are building a pure API backend consumed by a separate frontend or mobile app
• Performance and concurrency matter — high-traffic APIs, real-time workloads, streaming responses
• You are serving machine learning models or building an ML pipeline API
• You are building microservices where lightweight and fast startup time matters
• Your team values explicit type safety and automatic documentation as first-class features
• You are working on an async-heavy workload — webhooks, websockets, background tasks
• You want OpenAPI documentation generated automatically from your code

FastAPI's async-native architecture and tight Pydantic integration make it the natural choice for modern API development where performance and developer experience both matter.

Summary

Django and FastAPI are both excellent frameworks. The decision comes down to what you are building, not which framework is objectively better.

Choose Django when you need the full stack — templating, admin, auth, ORM, and a rich ecosystem of plugins working together out of the box. It is the most productive choice for content-heavy applications, internal tools, and monolithic applications where convention over configuration is a feature.

Choose FastAPI when you are building APIs, microservices, or high-performance backends. Its async-first design, automatic documentation, and type-driven validation make it the most productive choice for modern API development.

Both frameworks are production-ready. Both have active communities and long-term futures. Both deploy cleanly on Out Plane with minimal configuration.

Deploy either framework on Out Plane today: Django deployment guide | FastAPI deployment guide. Get started with Out Plane.