A web framework (WF) or web application framework (WAF) is a

software framework In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software, providing generic functionality, can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software. It provides a standard ...

that is designed to support the development of

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

s including web services, web resources, and web APIs. Web frameworks provide a standard way to build and deploy web applications on the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

. Web frameworks aim to automate the overhead associated with common activities performed in

web development Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web application ...

. For example, many web frameworks provide

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

for

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

access, templating frameworks, and session management, and they often promote code reuse. Although they often target development of dynamic web sites, they are also applicable to static websites.

History

As the design of the

was not inherently dynamic, early

hypertext Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references ( hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typicall ...

consisted of hand-coded

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

text files that were published on web servers. Any modifications to published pages needed to be performed by the pages' author. In 1993, the

Common Gateway Interface In computing, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is an interface specification that enables web servers to execute an external program, typically to process user requests. Such programs are often written in a scripting language and are commonly re ...

(CGI) standard was introduced for interfacing external applications with web servers, to provide a dynamic web page that reflected user inputs. Original implementations of the CGI interface typically had adverse effects on the server load however, because each request started a separate

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

. More recent implementations utilize persistent processes amongst other techniques to reduce the footprint in the server's resources and offer a general performance boost. In 1995, fully integrated server/language development environments first emerged and new web-specific languages were introduced, such as

ColdFusion Adobe ColdFusion is a commercial rapid web-application development computing platform created by J. J. Allaire in 1995. (The programming language used with that platform is also commonly called ColdFusion, though is more accurately known as ...

PHP PHP is a General-purpose programming language, general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementati ...

, and

Active Server Pages Active Server Pages (ASP) is Microsoft's first server-side scripting language and engine for dynamic web pages. It was first released in December 1996, before being superseded in January 2002 by ASP.NET. History Initially released as an ...

. Although the vast majority of languages for creating dynamic web pages have

to help with common tasks, web applications often require specific libraries for particular tasks, such as creating

(for example, Jakarta Server Faces). In the late 1990s, mature, "full stack" frameworks began to appear, that often gathered multiple libraries useful for

into a single cohesive software stack for web developers to use. Examples of this include ASP.NET, Java EE,

WebObjects WebObjects was a Java web application server and a server-based web application framework originally developed by NeXT Software, Inc. WebObject's hallmark features are its object-orientation, database connectivity, and prototyping tools. ...

, web2py, OpenACS,

Catalyst Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...

, Mojolicious,

Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails (simplified as Rails) is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web ...

, Laravel, Grails, Django, Zend Framework, Sails.js, Yii, CakePHP, and Symfony.

Types of framework architectures

Most web frameworks are based on the

model–view–controller Model–view–controller (MVC) is a software architectural pattern commonly used for developing user interfaces that divide the related program logic into three interconnected elements. This is done to separate internal representations of infor ...

(MVC)

pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...

Model–view–controller (MVC)

Many frameworks follow the MVC architectural pattern to separate the

data model A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be c ...

into business rules (the "controller") and the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

(the "view"). This is generally considered a good practice as it modularizes code, promotes code reuse, and allows multiple interfaces to be applied. In web applications, this permits different views to be presented, for example serving different web pages for mobile vs. desktop browsers, or providing machine-readable web service interfaces.

Push-based vs. pull-based

Most MVC frameworks follow a push-based architecture also called "action-based". These frameworks use actions that do the required processing, and then "push" the data to the view layer to render the results. Django,

, Symfony,

Spring MVC Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a he ...

, Stripes, Sails.js,

CodeIgniter CodeIgniter is an open-source software rapid development web framework, for use in building dynamic web sites with PHP. Popularity CodeIgniter is loosely based on the popular model–view–controller (MVC) development pattern. While controller c ...

are good examples of this architecture. An alternative to this is pull-based architecture, sometimes also called "component-based". These frameworks start with the view layer, which can then "pull" results from multiple controllers as needed. In this architecture, multiple controllers can be involved with a single view.

Lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobile ...

Tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...

, JBoss Seam, Jakarta Server Faces, and

Wicket In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman out. ...

are examples of pull-based architectures.

Play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

, Struts, RIFE, and ZK have support for both push- and pull-based application controller calls.

Three-tier organization

In three-tier organization, applications are structured around three physical tiers: client, application, and database. The database is normally an

RDBMS A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

. The application contains the business logic, running on a server and communicates with the client using

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

. The client on web applications is a web browser that runs HTML generated by the application layer. The term should not be confused with MVC, where, unlike in three-tier architecture, it is considered a good practice to keep business logic away from the controller, the "middle layer".

Framework applications

Frameworks are built to support the construction of internet applications based on a single programming language, ranging in focus from general purpose tools such as Zend Framework and Ruby on Rails, which augment the capabilities of a specific language, to native-language programmable packages built around a specific user application, such as

content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content ( content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

s, some mobile development tools and some portal tools.

General-purpose website frameworks

Web frameworks must function according to the architectural rules of browsers and protocols such as

, which is stateless. Webpages are served up by a server and can then be modified by the browser using

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

. Either approach has its advantages and disadvantages. Server-side page changes typically require that the page be refreshed, but allow any language to be used and more computing power to be utilized. Client-side changes allow the page to be updated in small chunks which feels like a desktop application, but are limited to JavaScript and run in the user's browser, which may have limited computing power. Some mix of the two is typically used. Applications which make heavy use of JavaScript and only refresh parts of the page, are called

single-page application A single-page application (SPA) is a web application or website that interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the current web page with new data from the web server, instead of the default method of a web browser loading entire new pages. ...

s and typically make use of a client-side JavaScript web framework to organize the code.

Server-side

* Apache Wicket *

ASP.NET Core ASP.NET Core is a free and open-source web framework and successor to ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET. However, ASP.NET Core version 3 on ...

* CakePHP *

CppCMS CppCMS is an open-source web application framework for the C++ programming language developed by Artyom Beilis. The primary goal of CppCMS is building performance-demanding web applications. It may also be used for embedded web applications for ...

* Django * Flask * Jam.py * Yii * Laravel * Mojolicious *

* Sails.js * Symfony *

Wt (web toolkit) Wt (pronounced ''"witty"'') is an open-source widget-centric web framework for the C++ programming language. It has an API resembling that of Qt framework (although it was developed with Boost, and is incompatible when mixed with Qt), also us ...

* Zend Framework

Client-side

Examples include Backbone.js,

AngularJS AngularJS is a discontinued free and open-source JavaScript-based web framework for developing single-page applications. It was maintained mainly by Google and a community of individuals and corporations. It aimed to simplify both the developm ...

, Angular,

EmberJS Ember.js is an open-source JavaScript web framework that utilizes a component-service pattern. It allows developers to create scalable single-page web applications by incorporating common idioms, best practices, and patterns from other single-p ...

, ReactJS, jQuery UI, Svelte, and Vue.js.

Discussion forums, wikis and weblogs

*WikiBase/

WikiWikiWeb The WikiWikiWeb is the first wiki, or user-editable website. It was launched on 25 March 1995 by programmer Ward Cunningham to accompany the Portland Pattern Repository website discussing software design patterns. The name ''WikiWikiWeb'' orig ...

Features

Frameworks typically set the

control flow In computer science, control flow (or flow of control) is the order in which individual statements, instructions or function calls of an imperative program are executed or evaluated. The emphasis on explicit control flow distinguishes an '' ...

of a program and allow the user of the framework to "hook into" that flow by exposing various events. This " inversion of control" design pattern is considered to be a defining principle of a framework, and benefits the code by enforcing a common flow for a team which everyone can customize in similar ways. For example, some popular "microframeworks" such as Ruby's Sinatra (which inspired

Express.js Express.js, or simply Express, is a back end web application framework for building RESTful APIs with Node.js, released as free and open-source software under the MIT License. It is designed for building web applications and APIs. It has been ...

) allow for "middleware" hooks prior to and after HTTP requests. These middleware functions can be anything, and allow the user to define logging, authentication and session management, and redirecting.

Web template system

Caching

Web caching is the

caching In computing, a cache ( ) is a hardware or software component that stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster; the data stored in a cache might be the result of an earlier computation or a copy of data stored elsewher ...

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created b ...

documents A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" or ...

in order to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived " lag". A web cache stores copies of documents passing through it; subsequent requests may be satisfied from the cache if certain conditions are met. Some application frameworks provide mechanisms for caching documents and bypassing various stages of the page's preparation, such as database access or template interpretation.

Security

Some web frameworks come with

authentication Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicat ...

and

authorization Authorization or authorisation (see spelling differences) is the function of specifying access rights/privileges to resources, which is related to general information security and computer security, and to access control in particular. More f ...

frameworks, that enable the

web server A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initi ...

to identify the users of the application, and restrict access to functions based on some defined criteria.

Drupal Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwid ...

is one example that provides role-based access to pages, and provides a web-based interface for creating users and assigning them roles.

Database access, mapping and configuration

Many web frameworks create a unified API to a database backend, enabling web applications to work with a variety of databases with no code changes, and allowing programmers to work with higher-level concepts. Additionally, some

object-oriented Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of " objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...

frameworks contain mapping tools to provide object-relational mapping, which maps objects to

tuple In mathematics, a tuple is a finite ordered list (sequence) of elements. An -tuple is a sequence (or ordered list) of elements, where is a non-negative integer. There is only one 0-tuple, referred to as ''the empty tuple''. An -tuple is defi ...

s. Some frameworks minimize web application configuration through the use of

introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own Consciousness, conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's Mental representation, mental state, while in a Spirituality, spiritual c ...

and/or following well-known conventions. For example, many Java frameworks use

Hibernate Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression undergone by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most ...

as a persistence layer, which can generate a database schema at runtime capable of persisting the necessary information. This allows the application designer to design business objects without needing to explicitly define a database schema. Frameworks such as

can also work in reverse, that is, define properties of model objects at runtime based on a database schema. Other features web frameworks may provide include transactional support and database migration tools.

URL mapping

A framework's

URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

mapping or routing facility is the mechanism by which the framework interprets URLs. Some frameworks, such as Drupal and Django, match the provided URL against pre-determined patterns using

regular expression A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" ...

s, while some others use

rewriting In mathematics, computer science, and logic, rewriting covers a wide range of methods of replacing subterms of a formula with other terms. Such methods may be achieved by rewriting systems (also known as rewrite systems, rewrite engines, or reduc ...

techniques to translate the provided URL into one that the underlying engine will recognize. Another technique is that of

graph traversal In computer science, graph traversal (also known as graph search) refers to the process of visiting (checking and/or updating) each vertex in a graph. Such traversals are classified by the order in which the vertices are visited. Tree traversal ...

such as used by Zope, where a URL is decomposed in steps that traverse an object graph (of models and views). A URL mapping system that uses pattern matching or rewriting to route and handle requests allows for shorter more "

friendly URL Clean URLs, also sometimes referred to as RESTful URLs, user-friendly URLs, pretty URLs or search engine-friendly URLs, are URLs intended to improve the usability and accessibility of a website or web service by being immediately and intuitivel ...

s" to be used, increasing the simplicity of the site and allowing for better indexing by search engines. For example, a URL that ends with "/page.cgi?cat=science&topic=physics" could be changed to simply "/page/science/physics". This makes the URL easier for people to remember, read and write, and provides search engines with better information about the structural layout of the site. A graph traversal approach also tends to result in the creation of friendly URLs. A shorter URL such as "/page/science" tends to exist by default as that is simply a shorter form of the longer traversal to "/page/science/physics".

AJAX

Ajax Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...

, shorthand for "'' Asynchronous

and

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

''", is a web development technique for creating web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This is intended to increase a web page's interactivity, speed, maintainability, and

usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a sof ...

. Due to the complexity of Ajax programming in JavaScript, there are numerous Ajax frameworks that exclusively deal with Ajax support. Some Ajax frameworks are even embedded as a part of larger frameworks. For example, the

jQuery jQuery is a JavaScript library designed to simplify HTML DOM tree traversal and manipulation, as well as event handling, CSS animation, and Ajax. It is free, open-source software using the permissive MIT License. As of Aug 2022, jQuery is ...

JavaScript library is included in Ruby on Rails. With the increased interest in developing " Web 2.0"

rich web application A rich web application (originally called a rich Internet application, or RIA or installable Internet application) is a web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software. The concept is closely related to a sing ...

s, the complexity of programming directly in Ajax and JavaScript has become so apparent that compiler technology has stepped in, to allow developers to code in high-level languages such as Java, Python and Ruby. The first of these compilers was Morfik followed by Google Web Toolkit, with ports to Python and Ruby in the form of Pyjs and RubyJS following some time after. These compilers and their associated widget set libraries make the development of rich media Ajax applications much more akin to that of developing desktop applications.

Web services

Some frameworks provide tools for creating and providing web services. These utilities may offer similar tools as the rest of the web application.

Web resources

A number of newer Web 2.0

REST Rest or REST may refer to: Relief from activity * Sleep ** Bed rest * Kneeling * Lying (position) * Sitting * Squatting position Structural support * Structural support ** Rest (cue sports) ** Armrest ** Headrest ** Footrest Arts and ente ...

ful frameworks are now providing resource-oriented architecture (ROA) infrastructure for building collections of resources in a sort of Semantic Web

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ...

, based on concepts from

Resource Description Framework The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard originally designed as a data model for metadata. It has come to be used as a general method for description and exchange of graph data. RDF provides a variety of ...

(RDF).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Web Framework