Table of contents
Definition
A Web framework refers to a set of tools and resources used by software or web developers to build and manage websites, web services, or web applications.
A web framework is a pre-built structure that addresses the most repetitive activities and processes involved during website or web application development. Very good frameworks usually come with good coding practices baked in, which influences how the developer writes the rest of their code leading to overall code quality. Speaking of modern architecture, most web frameworks these days are based on the MVC [→] architecture.
Some key features linked with web frameworks are URL mapping, web caching [→], a cleaner and easier way to deal with working with databases using Object Relational Models (ORM) or ORMs, configuration [→], authentication [→], authorization [→], etc.
Use Cases and Examples
There are plenty of web frameworks out there for developers to choose from. However, developers usually end up picking web frameworks based on a programming language they are already familiar with.
Some web frameworks include Django [↗], ASP.NET [↗], Ruby on Rails [↗], and Laravel [↗], which are popular choices for the Python, c#, Ruby, and PHP languages respectively.
Summary
All the examples presented in this definition are used to define what might be known today as backend web frameworks, these days there are a different set of web frameworks known as frontend web frameworks or just frontend frameworks. These frameworks are primarily meant to be used to develop and handle logic for the user interface of web applications for the most part.
Web frameworks are usually great tools but sometimes come with limitations and developers might find themselves fighting against the framework to achieve certain software requirements. Most good frameworks combat this by providing a lot of extensibility options that developers can leverage.
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