Top 5 backend frameworks 2021 is here again.
As a backend developer, we know that frameworks are essential in our day-to-day software development.
Choosing the right framework for your projects in 2021 is also essential as your project may increase demand.
In as much as different developers use numerous frameworks across the world.
There are only a handful of these backend frameworks that remain powerful and have the ability to deploy a large and scalable application.
In this article, I will look at the top 5 backend frameworks to give you an insight into what you can start learning in 2021.
Top 5 backend frameworks 2021
Laravel
Django
Spring Boot
Ruby on Rails
Express
Laravel
Laravel is a PHP MVC framework for web artisans.
It’s a web application framework with beautiful and elegant syntax.
It is also an open-source framework for building simple to complex web applications following the MVC architectural pattern.
PHP powers over 79.1% percent of all websites across the internet.
Laravel is one of PHP’s most popular frameworks, making Laravel stand out as a framework to learn in 2021.
Laravel provides ease of development, enjoyable and good software development practices.
It also takes away pains in software development by providing a different abstraction to popular development tasks such as:
Routing Engine:
Laravel provides a simple and straightforward routing engine to ease the development process of a developer.
Dependency Injection:
Laravel provides a powerful dependency injection container that allows developers to plug in any Service, Class, and module.
Multiple Session and Cache Engines:
Laravel provides easy-to-navigate session and cache engines with different popular cache and session engines supported out of the box.
Eloquent Database ORM:
This is one of the most powerful features of Laravel, and Eloquent takes away the pain of manually handling databases away and provides an easy-to-use ORM.
Check out the complete guide on Laravel relationships to give you a clear picture of how Laravel handles database operations easily.
Database Schema Migration:
With Laravel’s Schema, you don’t need to write a single SQL to create a database schema/table because Laravel handles all that out of the box.
Further Learning
To learn more about Laravel, take a look at our Laravel tutorial: The ultimate guide 2021.
When it comes to learning Laravel, I will personally and highly recommend Laravel 8 Beginner to Advance with Complete News Portal. With it, I was able to learn and start building projects within a week.
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Django
Django is a high-level python web framework built with Speed, Security, and Scalability at its core.
It also encourages RAD (Rapid Application Development ) using clean, pragmatic software design.
It is built by more experienced developers to facilitate the application development process by taking away plenty of web development hassles.
When building larger projects with Django, it allows you to harness the full power of the framework.
Django has many sweet features that make it stand out from other frameworks, such as:
Ridiculously Fast:
Django framework is built with speed in mind, and developers can build complex and large applications in no time.
Security:
Security is primary in Django as it helps developers to avoid some securities pitfalls.
Scalability:
Scalability is primary in the framework making it easy for web applications to scale efficiently.
We have created a complete getting started with Django article just for you, and it covers step by step all you need to get started with Django.
Further Learning
Django & Python: complete BUNDLE + Django real project 2020 | Udemy is my favorite course on Django because it takes from python programming language to Django to building complex real-world projects.
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Spring Boot
Spring Boot is an open-source Java-based framework for creating standalone, production-ready Spring-based applications.
The Spring framework is a Java-based framework and inversion of the control container for the Java platform.
According to W3techs, Java is the 4th most used server-side language in all websites, making Spring Boot a top choice for Java-based companies.
If you are a Java developer learning the Spring framework is a must for your career.
The Java Spring Boot has many great features that allow developers to write clean, and elegant Java codes such as:
You can create stand-alone Spring applications that can be deployed on a different server and scaled independently.
Embedded Tomcat server, jetty, and others out of the box, no need to write any complex WAR files for configuration.
Spring boot provides a starter template to get you started quickly with dependencies to simplify your build configurations.
It also provides automatic configurations for Spring and third-party libraries.
Further Learning
We have created a complete getting started with Spring Boot article just for you, and it covers step by step all you need to get started with Spring Boot.
Learn Hibernate and Spring (As A Total Beginner) Tutorial is a complete package course if you want to delve right into Spring, Spring Boot, Hibernate, etc., and start building real-world projects.
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Ruby on Rails
ROR (Ruby on Rails) is a new member of our top 5 backend frameworks family.
Recently there has been a major rise in the Ruby community.
It is currently the 3rd most used server-side language on all websites, according to W3Techs.
Ruby on Rails is an open-source web application framework that is based on the Ruby programming language.
Developers using Ruby on Rails are encouraged to used MVC patterns and the DRY software principle.
If you have worked with Django and Ruby on Rails before, you will notice similarities in principles but different programming languages.
Many features make Ruby on Rails stands out from other frameworks, such as:
It offers clean syntax and easy to understand codebase.
ROR provides clean ORM using Active Record
It has a massive and large community of developers for assistance.
You can easily build and deploy small projects and scale them to larger ones easily.
Further Learning
We have created a complete getting started with Ruby on Rails article just for you, and it covers step by step all you need to get started with ROR.
The Complete Ruby on Rails Developer Course is my top recommendation for learning Ruby on Rails and a top recommendation from a Ruby on Rails developer.
Subscribe here to stay in the loop.
Express
According to the StackOverflow 2020 Survey, JavaScript is the most popular language, with about 67.7% of respondents including the Frontend and Backend parts of JavaScript.
But according to W3Techs, Server-side (Backend) JavaScript currently powers only about 1.1% of all websites.
The JavaScript community is gaining this popularity on the Server Side with Node.js.
Expressjs a go-to framework when using Node.js for Backend development.
Express is a fast, unopinionated, and minimalist JavaScript framework for Node.js.
It’s a flexible Nodejs web framework for building a robust set of features in Web and Mobile applications with Node.js.
Expressjs has great features that can speed up your development process with Node.js, such as:
Other frameworks use good routing systems.
The setup process only requires installing the library through an NPM command.
Expressjs has a large number of predefined plugins and libraries you can install to achieve almost anything.
Express also has a huge community and users; therefore, you won’t be stuck for so long in a bug.
We have created a complete getting started with Express article just for you, and it covers all you need to get started with Express step by step.
NodeJS – The Complete Guide (MVC, REST APIs, GraphQL, Deno) is my top recommendation and complete guide you need to learn Nodejs and Express.
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Bonus
For reading this long, I have a reward for you.
Below is a list of 5 backend frameworks also worth checking out in 2021
You can take a glance at the frameworks with this infographic from Galaxyweblinks.
Final Thoughts
Choosing a particular one for your project will solely depend on the type of project and the programming language, team strength.
It is most likely that you’re familiar with JavaScript already as a beginner, so I will encourage you to delve into Expressjs immediately, in my opinion.
If you’re coming from a PHP or OOP background and looking at learning a framework, start with Laravel immediately.
Learning Laravel or Express may be easy to get a job and start making money while learning others as needed.
After learning the above frameworks, you can choose anyone from the list and further as required.
In the comment section, let me know which backend framework you will learn first in 2021 and which was your first backend framework, and why.
Conclusion
This article covered the top 5 backend frameworks 2021 and the different features that make them stand out.
Happy coding!
