Are you looking for an efficient way to create APIs quickly and reliably?
FastAPI is an open-source, modern, high-performance web framework that makes it easy to build APIs with Python.
Table of Contents
Learning FastAPI Online: A Student’s Guide
What is FastAPI?
FastAPI is a modern, fast (high-performance) web framework for building APIs with Python based on standard Python-type hints. It is a Python web framework built on top of Starlette and Pydantic, inspired by previous server frameworks such as Flask and Falcon.
FastAPI is a major improvement over previous web frameworks due to its high performance, simple and clean syntax, easy scalability, and extensive documentation.
The FastAPI framework seeks to take the best of existing web frameworks and develop further for creating an easy-to-use, high-performance API. It is designed to work with asyncio, allowing for efficient asynchronous request handling.
It also supports OpenAPI, which is an industry-standard document format for describing an API’s structure and capabilities. In addition, FastAPI is built on top of type hints, which means that developers can use Python’s type hinting to automatically validate and convert data types, as well as automatically generate interactive API documentation.
It is well-documented and the type hinting feature can help developers quickly find errors in their code and reduce development time.
With its clean syntax and asyncio support, FastAPI is a great choice for quickly creating web applications and services.
FastAPI use cases
FastAPI can be used for a wide range of use cases including developing web applications, REST APIs, machine learning models, and data science pipelines.
- Web Applications: FastAPI is an ideal choice for developing web applications due to its performance and scalability. It’s fast and lightweight, meaning it can easily handle large requests with minimal overhead. It also supports asynchronous programming, making it ideal for real-time applications such as chatbots or streaming services.
- REST APIs: FastAPI is an excellent choice for developing REST APIs due to its OpenAPI document. This document provides developers with a clear and concise overview of their API, allowing them to quickly and easily make changes to the API during development. The OpenAPI document can also be used to generate a UI view of the API, making it easy to test and debug.
- Machine Learning Models: FastAPI can be used to deploy machine learning models. The framework supports model serving via REST APIs, meaning developers can quickly and easily deploy their models and make them available to other applications and services.
- Data Science Pipelines: Data science pipelines are complex, requiring developers to design, develop, and deploy multiple components in order to create a working system. FastAPI is an ideal choice for this task due to its scalability and performance. It can easily handle large requests and can easily be integrated with other components of the data science pipeline.
FastAPI learning resources
Here are some of the best learning resources to help you get up to speed with FastAPI.
- Official Documentation: The official documentation of FastAPI is a great place to start. It contains all the information you need to get up and running quickly, such as installation instructions, core concepts, and API references.
- If you prefer to learn from books, there are several books available on the topic of FastAPI. One of the best books is “FastAPI: The Little Book”, which provides an introduction to FastAPI and explains its core concepts in detail.
- using FastAPI to build web APIs – Real Python
- FastAPI course for beginners by freecodecamp on youtube
- Learning FastAPI : The hard way – FastapiTutorial
- Python REST API tutorial: Getting started with FastAPI – educative.IO
- Python FastAPI Tutorial: Build a Fast API – CodingNomads
- FastAPI Course Bundle – TestDriven.io
- Python FastAPI crash course – DEV Community
- Build an App With FastAPI for Python – Kinsta
By using some or all of these resources, you can quickly become an expert in FastAPI and build robust, high-performance APIs with ease.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is FastAPI better than Django?
FastAPI is a newer framework that is well-suited for building API’s quickly and efficiently. It offers speedier development through the use of asynchronous functions and type-hinting. On the other hand, Django is a more established framework and offers a great number of features, such as an ORM, templating system, and user authentication. Ultimately, the decision on which framework to use depends on which features are most important for the project and which best fits the developer’s skill set.
Is FastAPI better than flask?
While Flask is a tried-and-true web framework for Python, FastAPI provides similar features with better performance, as it is built on top of the Starlette ASGI library and based on the Pydantic library, which has been proven to be more efficient at handling requests. Therefore, FastAPI can be considered better than Flask in terms of performance, scalability, and flexibility.
Is FastAPI a full-stack framework?
No, FastAPI is not a full-stack framework. It is a modern, high-performance web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python-type hints. FastAPI is built on top of Starlette, but it is focused mainly on facilitating the building of APIs quickly and efficiently. It provides an intuitive way to define endpoints, serialize data, validate data, and it has support for popular web frameworks like Django and Flask.
Is FastAPI easy to learn?
FastAPI is an easy-to-learn web framework built on top of Python. It is based on modern standards of web development, such as OpenAPI, JSON Schema, and OAuth2, and provides a powerful and secure platform to build your application. FastAPI provides a simple, yet a comprehensive suite of tools to help developers quickly and easily create a web application. It has been designed to make the development of secure, maintainable, and scalable web applications fast and easy, and the learning curve is relatively shallow for developers familiar with Python.
What FastAPI is used for?
FastAPI is used for building APIs. It is built on the latest versions of Python, and it is designed to help developers create APIs quickly and easily. It implements modern best practices including schema validation and data serialization, automatic documentation, automatic testing, and high performance. FastAPI is used for creating robust and secure APIs that support asynchronous requests, data streaming, and real-time messaging, and it is easy to integrate with databases and other services in order to build powerful software systems.
Conclusion
In conclusion, FastAPI has a lot to offer those looking to learn how to build server-side applications quickly and easily.
It provides developers with the ability to create endpoints quickly and efficiently, deploy applications on any platform, and customize code to meet their exact requirements.
Furthermore, the online courses and community support make it easier to learn the fundamentals of FastAPI and build robust web applications with minimal effort.
With the right resources and guidance, developers can quickly become proficient in FastAPI and start building powerful applications efficiently.