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FastAPI VS Node.js

Compare FastAPI VS Node.js and see what are their differences

FastAPI logo FastAPI

FastAPI is an Open Source, modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints.

Node.js logo Node.js

Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications
  • FastAPI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-14
  • Node.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-18

FastAPI features and specs

  • High Performance
    Built on Starlette and Pydantic, FastAPI is one of the fastest frameworks for Python, providing high performance due to its asynchronous request handling.
  • Automatic Interactive API Documentation
    FastAPI automatically generates interactive API documentation via Swagger UI and ReDoc, which are very helpful for development and testing.
  • Type Checking and Validation
    With Pydantic models and Python type hints, FastAPI provides automatic data validation and type checking, reducing the chance of runtime errors.
  • Ease of Use
    Its syntax and design make it easy to learn for Python developers, offering a smooth development experience while reducing boilerplate code.
  • Asynchronous Support
    FastAPI supports asynchronous programming, allowing for better performance for I/O-bound operations, making it optimal for handling many simultaneous connections.
  • Extensive Documentation
    It has comprehensive and well-structured documentation, which is very useful for both beginners and advanced users.
  • Community and Ecosystem
    FastAPI has a growing community and ecosystem, with many plugins and integrations available to extend its functionality.

Possible disadvantages of FastAPI

  • Learning Curve for Asynchronous Programming
    Although FastAPI itself is easy to learn, grasping the concepts of asynchronous programming in Python can be challenging for beginners.
  • Complex Dependencies
    Using Pydantic for advanced validation can make the request models complex, requiring a deeper understanding of Pydantic and its functionalities.
  • Early Stage Libraries
    Some third-party libraries and extensions specifically tailored for FastAPI might still be in early stages of development and lack long-term stability.
  • Limited Real-World Examples
    Although the documentation is extensive, there might be limited real-world examples and case studies readily available compared to more mature frameworks.
  • Deployment Complexity
    Deploying FastAPI applications might be more complex in comparison to traditional synchronous frameworks, mainly due to the need for asynchronous server setups.

Node.js features and specs

  • Asynchronous and Event-Driven
    Node.js uses an asynchronous, non-blocking, and event-driven I/O model, making it efficient and scalable for handling multiple simultaneous connections.
  • JavaScript Everywhere
    Developers can use JavaScript for both client-side and server-side programming, providing a unified language environment and better synergy between front-end and back-end development.
  • Large Community and NPM
    Node.js has a vibrant community and a rich ecosystem with the Node Package Manager (NPM), which offers thousands of open-source libraries and tools that can be integrated easily into projects.
  • High Performance
    Built on the V8 JavaScript engine from Google, Node.js translates JavaScript directly into native machine code, which increases performance and speed.
  • Scalability
    Designed with microservices and scalability in mind, Node.js enables easy horizontal scaling across multiple servers.
  • JSON Support
    Node.js seamlessly handles JSON, which is a common format for API responses, making it an excellent choice for building RESTful APIs and data-intensive real-time applications.

Possible disadvantages of Node.js

  • Callback Hell
    The reliance on callbacks to manage asynchronous operations can lead to deeply nested and difficult-to-read code, commonly referred to as 'Callback Hell'.
  • Not Suitable for CPU-Intensive Tasks
    Node.js is optimized for I/O operations and can become inefficient for CPU-intensive tasks, slowing down overall performance due to its single-threaded event loop.
  • Immaturity of Tools
    Compared to more established technologies, some Node.js libraries and tools still lack maturity and comprehensive documentation, which can be challenging for developers.
  • Callback and Promise Overheads
    Managing asynchronous operations using callbacks or promises can lead to additional complexity and overhead, impacting maintainability and performance if not handled correctly.
  • Fragmented Ecosystem
    The fast-paced evolution of Node.js and its ecosystem can lead to fragmentation, with numerous versions and libraries that may not always be compatible with each other.
  • Security Issues
    The extensive use of third-party libraries via NPM can introduce security vulnerabilities if not properly managed and updated, making applications more susceptible to attacks.

FastAPI videos

FastAPI from the ground up

More videos:

  • Tutorial - 30 Days of Python - Day 14 - Web App with Flask, FastAPI, ngrok, and Invictify - Python TUTORIAL
  • Review - [PT] Python - API com FastAPI - Chat | twitch.tv/codeshow

Node.js videos

What is Node.js? | Mosh

More videos:

  • Review - What is Node.js Exactly? - a beginners introduction to Nodejs
  • Review - Learn node.js in 2020 - A review of best node.js courses

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to FastAPI and Node.js)
Developer Tools
24 24%
76% 76
Web Frameworks
32 32%
68% 68
Runtime
0 0%
100% 100
API Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare FastAPI and Node.js

FastAPI Reviews

The 20 Best Laravel Alternatives for Web Development
FastAPI, as the name hints, is a swift mover. Built on Starlette, it’s all about speed and performance with Python. Crafting API masterpieces at the speed of light, now that’s something.
25 Python Frameworks to Master
Since its release in 2018, it has rapidly gained popularity due to its great performance and simplicity. In fact, according to PyPi Stats, FastAPI has over 9 million monthly downloads, surpassing even full-stack frameworks like Django.
Source: kinsta.com
3 Web Frameworks to Use With Python
myapp/ is the main directory of your FastAPI application. It includes all the other files and directories needed for the application.static/ is a directory used to store static assets such as CSS, JavaScript, and image files. These assets are served directly by the web server and are typically used to add visual styling and interactivity to the application.css/, img/, js/...
Best Alternatives to FastAPI App Free for Windows (2021)
FastAPI Alternative – So many alternatives app to FastAPI that you must to know out there. And, looking for an ideal software was not easy matter. Lucky you, at this page you can find the best replacement app for FastAPI. So what you are waiting for, get the latest FastAPI alternative app for Windows 10 from this page.
Top 5 Back-End Frameworks to Consider for Web Development in 2021
FastAPI is a modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints. It is fast when compared to other major Python frameworks like Flask and Django. FastAPI gives great flexibility to fulfill businesses’ API needs in today’s evolving world.

Node.js Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks in 2025
JavaScript is widely used for back-end or server-side development because it makes a call to the remote server when a web page loads on the browser. When a browser loads a web page, it makes a call to a remote server. Further, the code parses the page’s URL to understand users’ requirements before retrieving and transforming the required data to serve back to the browser....
Source: solguruz.com
9 Best JavaScript Frameworks to Use in 2023
Node.js applications are written in JavaScript and run on the Node.js runtime, which allows them to be executed on any platform that supports Node.js. Node.js applications are typically event-driven and single-threaded, making them efficient and scalable. Additionally, the Node Package Manager (NPM) provides a way to install and manage dependencies for Node.js projects...
Source: ninetailed.io
20 Best JavaScript Frameworks For 2023
TJ Holowaychuk built Express in 2010 before being acquired by IBM (StrongLoop) in 2015. Node.js Foundation currently maintains it. The key reason Express is one of the best JavaScript frameworks is its rapid server-side coding. Complex tasks that would take hours to code using pure Node.js can be resolved in a few minutes, thanks to Express. On top of that, Express offers a...
FOSS | Top 15 Web Servers 2021
Node.js is a cross-platform server-side JavaScript environment built for developing and running network applications such as web servers. Node.js is licensed under a variety of licenses. As of March 2021, around 1.2% of applications were running on Node.js. Among the top companies and applications utilizing this modern web server are GoDaddy, Microsoft, General Electric,...
Source: www.zentao.pm
10 Best Tools to Develop Cross-Platform Desktop Apps 
Electron.js is compatible with a variety of frameworks, libraries, access to hardware-level APIs and chromium engine, and Node.js support. Electron Fiddle feature is great for experimentation as it allows developers to play around with concepts and templates. Simplification is at the center of Electron because developers don’t have to spend unnecessary time on the packaging,...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Node.js should be more popular than FastAPI. It has been mentiond 866 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

FastAPI mentions (265)

  • Top 20 Python API Frameworks with OpenAPI Support
    FastAPI is a modern, high-performance web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints. It is designed for quick development and high efficiency. Zuplo is a proud sponsor of the FastAPI project, to help drive API development in Python. - Source: dev.to / 20 days ago
  • How to Promote and Market your API: SPECtacular OpenAPI
    For Small teams and Startups I would recommend picking an API framework that automatically generates an OpenAPI spec through your code. Be very careful in which framework you pick as many claim to have OpenAPI support, but in reality only support a few fields. Many recent frameworks are built from the ground up around OpenAPI support. My recommendations are Huma for Go, Tsoa for Typescript, and FastAPI for Python.... - Source: dev.to / 20 days ago
  • How to Build your very own Google's NotebookLM
    FastAPI serves as our backend framework, chosen for several compelling reasons:. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Pydantic: The end of manual validations! ✨
    One of the most prominent use cases of Pydantic is in FastAPI, a modern web framework for building APIs with Python. FastAPI uses Pydantic models extensively for request body validation, query parameters, and response schemas. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Writing Integration And Unit Tests for a Simple Fast API application using Pytest
    Python is a great language for building various types of applications, especially in today's landscape where machine learning and AI are rapidly advancing. With this growth in services, there’s a strong need for well-designed, maintainable, and scalable APIs. That’s where FastAPI comes in, a powerful async web API framework for Python that's both simple and robust https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
View more

Node.js mentions (866)

  • Image Upload to Strapi via REST API with Next.js and Postman
    Media or file upload is very common in most technologies and providers, such as Nodejs, Laravel, Java, Cloudinary, AWS S3, etc., and is a fundamental aspect of web development. It is the transfer of files or media from a client machine to the server. This process is also a part of Strapi. - Source: dev.to / 1 day ago
  • Building Serverless APIS with Serverless,Node.js, Typescript, DynamoDB, and Lambda.
    We have the latest installed version of the Node.js runtime, you can find it here. - Source: dev.to / 6 days ago
  • A Straightforward Guide to Building and Using a JSON Database File
    Node.js and npm will need to be installed on your computer. Continue onto the following steps to set up and use JSON Server in your application:. - Source: dev.to / 10 days ago
  • Enhance Your App's Security with OTP-Agent
    Ensure you have Node.js installed, then run:. - Source: dev.to / 9 days ago
  • A Simple Approach to SSR with React 19 and esbuild
    As a prerequisite of our setup, we will need Node.js installed and the following packages:. - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing FastAPI and Node.js, you can also consider the following products

Django - The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines

ExpressJS - Sinatra inspired web development framework for node.js -- insanely fast, flexible, and simple

Flask - a microframework for Python based on Werkzeug, Jinja 2 and good intentions.

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

Laravel - A PHP Framework For Web Artisans

Ruby on Rails - Ruby on Rails is an open source full-stack web application framework for the Ruby programming...