Light, Flexible and Extensible ASGI API framework | Effortlessly Build Performant APIs

starlite-api starlite-api Last update: Mar 20, 2023

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Starlite

Starlite is a powerful, performant, flexible and opinionated ASGI framework, offering first class typing support and a full Pydantic integration.

Check out the documentation πŸ“š.

Installation

pip install starlite

Quick Start

from starlite import Starlite, get


@get("/")
def hello_world() -> dict[str, str]:
    """Keeping the tradition alive with hello world."""
    return {"hello": "world"}


app = Starlite(route_handlers=[hello_world])

Core Features

Example Applications

  • starlite-pg-redis-docker: In addition to Starlite, this demonstrates a pattern of application modularity, SQLAlchemy 2.0 ORM, Redis cache connectivity, and more. Like all Starlite projects, this application is open to contributions, big and small.
  • starlite-hello-world: A bare-minimum application setup. Great for testing and POC work.

The name Starlite and relation to Starlette

Starlite was originally built using the Starlette ASGI toolkit. The name Starlite was meant to show this relation. But, over time Starlite grew in capabilities and complexity, and eventually we no longer needed to depend on Starlette. From version 1.39.0 onward starlette was removed as a dependency of Starlite, and the name now carries this piece of history with it.

Performance

Starlite is fast. It is on par with, or significantly faster than comparable ASGI frameworks.

You can see and run the benchmarks here, or read more about it here in our documentation.

JSON Benchmarks

JSON benchmarks

Plaintext Benchmarks

Plaintext benchmarks

Features

Class Based Controllers

While supporting function based route handlers, Starlite also supports and promotes python OOP using class based controllers:

from typing import List, Optional

from pydantic import UUID4
from starlite import Controller, get, post, put, patch, delete
from starlite.partial import Partial
from datetime import datetime

from my_app.models import User


class UserController(Controller):
    path = "/users"

    @post()
    async def create_user(self, data: User) -> User:
        ...

    @get()
    async def list_users(self) -> List[User]:
        ...

    @get(path="/{date:int}")
    async def list_new_users(self, date: datetime) -> List[User]:
        ...

    @patch(path="/{user_id:uuid}")
    async def partial_update_user(self, user_id: UUID4, data: Partial[User]) -> User:
        ...

    @put(path="/{user_id:uuid}")
    async def update_user(self, user_id: UUID4, data: User) -> User:
        ...

    @get(path="/{user_name:str}")
    async def get_user_by_name(self, user_name: str) -> Optional[User]:
        ...

    @get(path="/{user_id:uuid}")
    async def get_user(self, user_id: UUID4) -> User:
        ...

    @delete(path="/{user_id:uuid}")
    async def delete_user(self, user_id: UUID4) -> None:
        ...

Data Parsing, Type Hints and Pydantic

One key difference between Starlite and Starlette/FastAPI is in parsing of form data and query parameters- Starlite supports mixed form data and has faster and better query parameter parsing.

Starlite is rigorously typed, and it enforces typing. For example, if you forget to type a return value for a route handler, an exception will be raised. The reason for this is that Starlite uses typing data to generate OpenAPI specs, as well as to validate and parse data. Thus typing is absolutely essential to the framework.

Furthermore, Starlite allows extending its support using plugins.

Plugin System, ORM support and DTOs

Starlite has a plugin system that allows the user to extend serialization/deserialization, OpenAPI generation and other features. It ships with a builtin plugin for SQL Alchemy, which allows the user to use SQLAlchemy declarative classes "natively", i.e. as type parameters that will be serialized/deserialized and to return them as values from route handlers.

Starlite also supports the programmatic creation of DTOs with a DTOFactory class, which also supports the use of plugins.

OpenAPI

Starlite has custom logic to generate OpenAPI 3.1.0 schema, the latest version. The schema generated by Starlite is significantly more complete and more correct than those generated by FastAPI, and they include optional generation of examples using the pydantic-factories library.

ReDoc, Swagger-UI and Stoplight Elements API Documentation

Starlite serves the documentation from the generated OpenAPI schema with:

All these are available and enabled by default.

Dependency Injection

Starlite has a simple but powerful DI system inspired by pytest. You can define named dependencies - sync or async - at different levels of the application, and then selective use or overwrite them.

from starlite import Starlite, get
from starlite.di import Provide


async def my_dependency() -> str:
    ...


@get("/")
async def index(injected: str) -> str:
    return injected


app = Starlite([index], dependencies={"injected": Provide(my_dependency)})

Middleware

Starlite supports typical ASGI middleware and ships with middlewares to handle things such as

  • CORS
  • CSRF
  • Rate limiting
  • GZip and Brotli compression
  • Client- and server-side sessions

Route Guards

Starlite has an authorization mechanism called guards, which allows the user to define guard functions at different level of the application (app, router, controller etc.) and validate the request before hitting the route handler function.

from starlite import (
    Starlite,
    get,
)
from starlite.connection import ASGIConnection
from starlite.handlers.base import BaseRouteHandler
from starlite.exceptions import NotAuthorizedException


async def is_authorized(connection: ASGIConnection, handler: BaseRouteHandler) -> None:
    # validate authorization
    # if not authorized, raise NotAuthorizedException
    raise NotAuthorizedException()


@get("/", guards=[is_authorized])
async def index() -> None:
    ...


app = Starlite([index])

Request Life Cycle Hooks

Starlite supports request life cycle hooks, similarly to Flask - i.e. before_request and after_request

Contributing

Starlite is open to contributions big and small. You can always join our discord server or join our Matrix space to discuss contributions and project maintenance. For guidelines on how to contribute, please see the contribution guide.

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

Na'aman Hirschfeld
Na'aman Hirschfeld

🚧 πŸ’» πŸ“– ⚠️ πŸ€” πŸ’‘ πŸ›
Peter Schutt
Peter Schutt

🚧 πŸ’» πŸ“– ⚠️ πŸ€” πŸ’‘ πŸ›
Ashwin Vinod
Ashwin Vinod

πŸ’» πŸ“–
Damian
Damian

πŸ“–
Vincent Sarago
Vincent Sarago

πŸ’»
Jonas KrΓΌger Svensson
Jonas KrΓΌger Svensson

πŸ“¦
Sondre LillebΓΈ Gundersen
Sondre LillebΓΈ Gundersen

πŸ“¦
Lev
Lev

πŸ’» πŸ€”
Tim Wedde
Tim Wedde

πŸ’»
Tory Clasen
Tory Clasen

πŸ’»
Arseny Boykov
Arseny Boykov

πŸ’» πŸ€”
Jacob Rodgers
Jacob Rodgers

πŸ’‘
Dane Solberg
Dane Solberg

πŸ’»
madlad33
madlad33

πŸ’»
Matthew Aylward
Matthew Aylward

πŸ’»
Jan Klima
Jan Klima

πŸ’»
C2D
C2D

⚠️
to-ph
to-ph

πŸ’»
imbev
imbev

πŸ“–
cătălin
cătălin

πŸ’»
Seon82
Seon82

πŸ“–
Slava
Slava

πŸ’»
Harry
Harry

πŸ’» πŸ“–
Cody Fincher
Cody Fincher

🚧 πŸ’» πŸ“– ⚠️ πŸ€” πŸ’‘ πŸ›
Christian Clauss
Christian Clauss

πŸ“–
josepdaniel
josepdaniel

πŸ’»
devtud
devtud

πŸ›
Nicholas Ramos
Nicholas Ramos

πŸ’»
seladb
seladb

πŸ“– πŸ’»
Simon WienhΓΆfer
Simon WienhΓΆfer

πŸ’»
MobiusXS
MobiusXS

πŸ’»
Aidan Simard
Aidan Simard

πŸ“–
wweber
wweber

πŸ’»
Samuel Colvin
Samuel Colvin

πŸ’»
Mateusz MikoΕ‚ajczyk
Mateusz MikoΕ‚ajczyk

πŸ’»
Alex
Alex

πŸ’»
Odiseo
Odiseo

πŸ“–
Javier  Pinilla
Javier Pinilla

πŸ’»
Chaoying
Chaoying

πŸ“–
infohash
infohash

πŸ’»
John Ingles
John Ingles

πŸ’»
Eugene
Eugene

⚠️ πŸ’»
Jon Daly
Jon Daly

πŸ“– πŸ’»
Harshal Laheri
Harshal Laheri

πŸ’» πŸ“–
TΓ©va KRIEF
TΓ©va KRIEF

πŸ’»
Konstantin Mikhailov
Konstantin Mikhailov

🚧 πŸ’» πŸ“– ⚠️ πŸ€” πŸ’‘ πŸ›
Mitchell Henry
Mitchell Henry

πŸ“–
chbndrhnns
chbndrhnns

πŸ“–
nielsvanhooy
nielsvanhooy

πŸ’»
provinzkraut
provinzkraut

🚧 πŸ’» πŸ“– ⚠️ πŸ€” πŸ’‘ πŸ›
Joshua Bronson
Joshua Bronson

πŸ“–
Roman Reznikov
Roman Reznikov

πŸ“–
mookrs
mookrs

πŸ“–
Mike DePalatis
Mike DePalatis

πŸ“–
Carlos Alberto PΓ©rez-Molano
Carlos Alberto PΓ©rez-Molano

πŸ“–
ThinksFast
ThinksFast

⚠️ πŸ“–
Christopher Krause
Christopher Krause

πŸ’»
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith

πŸ’» πŸ“–
Scott Bradley
Scott Bradley

πŸ›
Srikanth Chekuri
Srikanth Chekuri

⚠️ πŸ“–
Michael Bosch
Michael Bosch

πŸ“–
sssssss340
sssssss340

πŸ›
ste-pool
ste-pool

πŸ’»
Alc-Alc
Alc-Alc

πŸ“– πŸ’»
asomethings
asomethings

πŸ’»
Garry Bullock
Garry Bullock

πŸ“–
Niclas Haderer
Niclas Haderer

πŸ’»
Diego Alvarez
Diego Alvarez

πŸ“– πŸ’»
Jason Nance
Jason Nance

πŸ“–
Igor Kapadze
Igor Kapadze

πŸ“–
Somraj Saha
Somraj Saha

πŸ“–
Magnús Ágúst Skúlason
Magnús Ágúst Skúlason

πŸ’» πŸ“–
Alessio Parma
Alessio Parma

πŸ“–
Peter Brunner
Peter Brunner

πŸ’»
Jacob Coffee
Jacob Coffee

πŸ“– πŸ’» ⚠️
Gamazic
Gamazic

πŸ’»
Kareem Mahlees
Kareem Mahlees

πŸ’»
Abdulhaq Emhemmed
Abdulhaq Emhemmed

πŸ’»
Jenish
Jenish

πŸ’» πŸ“–
chris-telemetry
chris-telemetry

πŸ’»
Ward
Ward

πŸ›
Stephan Fitzpatrick
Stephan Fitzpatrick

πŸ›
Eric Kennedy
Eric Kennedy

πŸ“–
wassaf shahzad
wassaf shahzad

πŸ’»
Nils Olsson
Nils Olsson

πŸ’»
Riley Chase
Riley Chase

πŸ’»

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!

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