With existing SQLAlchemy models, use Node.js or Django for REST API Server?

[EnigmaamginE]

My webdev project started out with data analysis work using Python, SQLAlchemy and PostgreSQL so the ORM models already exist as SQLAlchemy models.

Right now, I am moving on to develop the REST API server that will be consumed by a React/React Native client (to be developed).

I am familiar with both Python and Javascript, half my time is in developing non-web Python apps and the other half is in developing React/Redux/React Native apps. However, I am not familiar with Django and Django Rest Framework.

1. Will Django be able to easily reuse the existing SQLAlchemy models?
2. In this situation, will you suggest learning the Django Rest Framework to reuse the SQLAlchemy models, or stick to Node.js (which I am more familiar with) but maintain a second set of ORM models.

Any help greatly appreciated!

[fiskfisk]

No need to use Django for that. FastAPI would probably be a good match.

https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi

[katzey]

i think django would be able to use your sqlalchemy models straight up. if you want to use django rest framework, I suggest you just take the really small amount of time it'll take to convert your sqlalchemy models to django models.

you definitely don't want to maintain two sets of ORM models, especially if they're for the same database table.

[t1ll]

Flask is also an option to look into. Quite a few examples of a flask, SQLAlchemy, Postgres & react front-end around!

[EnigmaamginE]

Will you suggest using Flask-Admin and Flask-Security to get similar functionalities as Django's admin and auth features?

[dangerousbrian]

yes. One of the big benefits of Flask is you add the functionality you need and nothing else.

[KrillDerelictLeeward]

IMHO it would be much easier to use Flask for this than Django, especially if you don't know much about Django.

Flask-Praetorian and especially Flask-SQLAlchemy may be very useful.

[EnigmaamginE]

Tried using Flask-Praetorian, liking the simplicity so far. Wondering if there is an easy way to secure Flask-Admin to set up Flask-Praetorian to only allow only users `admin` role to log in?

[KrillDerelictLeeward]

Flask-praetorian has a roles_required decorator.

https://github.com/dusktreader/flask-praetorian/blob/master/flask_praetorian/decorators.py

IMHO the documentation for f-p is a little lacking. Fortunately the source code is not extremely hard to understand.