Frameworks are software products that simplify the creation and support of technically complex or loaded projects. As a rule, a framework contains only basic software modules, and all project-specific components are implemented by the developer on their basis. This allows not only a high speed of development, but also greater productivity and reliability of solutions.
A web framework is a platform for the creation of websites and web applications that facilitates the development and integration of the various components of a large software project. Due to the wide possibilities in the implementation of business logic and high performance this platform is particularly well suited for creating complex sites, business applications and web services.
The main advantages of frameworks
Cost effectiveness and feasibility of frameworks
From a business perspective, framework development is almost always more cost effective and of higher quality than writing a project in a pure programming language without using any platforms. Development without a platform can be the right solution only in two cases – either a project is very simple and does not require further development or is very heavy and requires very low-level optimization (e.g. web services with tens of thousands of requests per second). In all other cases, development on a software platform is faster and of higher quality.
If we compare frameworks to other classes of platforms such as SaaS, CMS, or CMF, frameworks are much more effective in projects with complex business logic and with high demands on speed, reliability, and security. But in simple and typical projects without significant requirements, development speed and cost will be higher on a framework than on SaaS or CMS.
Technical advantages of frameworks
One of the main advantages of using frameworks is that a framework defines a uniform structure for the applications based on it. Therefore framework-based applications are much easier to maintain and modify as the standardized structure of components is clear to all developers on this platform and it is not necessary to understand the architecture for a long time in order to understand the principle of application operation or to find a place for the implementation of certain functionality.
Designing software architecture when developing on a framework is also very easy – framework methodologies usually incorporate the best practices of software engineering and simply by following these rules one can avoid many problems and errors in design.
Web framework ecosystems are also rich in ready-to-use implementations of many functionalities. Developers don’t have to “reinvent the wheel” when working on typical tasks, as they can use an implementation already created by the community.