Tornado vs. Flask: A Deep Dive into Python Web Frameworks

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Python has gained immense popularity as a programming language for web development, thanks to its simplicity, versatility, and a vast ecosystem of libraries and frameworks. Two of the most prominent web frameworks in the Python ecosystem are Tornado and Flask. In this deep dive, we will compare these two frameworks, explore their strengths and weaknesses, and provide code snippets to help you decide which one suits your project’s needs.

Tornado: The Asynchronous Powerhouse

Tornado is a Python web framework and asynchronous networking library. It was originally developed by FriendFeed and later open-sourced by Facebook. Tornado’s primary strength lies in its ability to handle high concurrency and long-lived connections efficiently, making it an excellent choice for real-time applications like chat servers, online gaming, and streaming services.

Code Snippet — Tornado Hello World:

import tornado.ioloop
import tornado.web

class MainHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
    def get(self):
        self.write("Hello, Tornado!")
if __name__ == "__main__":
    application = tornado.web.Application([(r"/", MainHandler)])
    application.listen(8888)
    tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.current().start()