Given the simplicity of Flask, it seemed like a good match for building APIs. The next thing to find was a "Django REST Framework" for Flask.

!!! check "Inspired **FastAPI** to"
    Be a micro-framework. Making it easy to mix and match the tools and parts needed.

    Have a simple and easy to use routing system.

But when checking benchmarks and comparisons you should keep the following in mind.

## Benchmarks and speed

When you check the benchmarks, it is common to see several tools of different types compared as equivalent.

## Server Machine and Server Program

There's a small detail about names to keep in mind. 💡

The word "**server**" is commonly used to refer to both the remote/cloud computer (the physical or virtual machine) and also the program that is running on that machine (e.g. Uvicorn).

Just keep in mind that when you read "server" in general, it could refer to one of those two things.

* data validation
* data serialization
* data documentation, etc.

This works the same way as with Pydantic models. And it is actually achieved in the same way underneath, using Pydantic.

!!! info
    Keep in mind that dataclasses can't do everything Pydantic models can do.

    So, you might still need to use Pydantic models.

{!../../../docs_src/behind_a_proxy/tutorial002.py!}
```

Passing the `root_path` to `FastAPI` would be the equivalent of passing the `--root-path` command line option to Uvicorn or Hypercorn.

### About `root_path`

Keep in mind that the server (Uvicorn) won't use that `root_path` for anything else than passing it to the app.

Several of these are explored in the next chapters of the tutorial.

## Order matters

When creating *path operations*, you can find situations where you have a fixed path.

Like `/users/me`, let's say that it's to get data about the current user.

And then you can also have a path `/users/{user_id}` to get data about a specific user by some user ID.

There are also several other companies offering similar services that you can search and find online. 🤓

## Generate a TypeScript Frontend Client

Let's start with a simple FastAPI application:

=== "Python 3.9+"

    ```Python hl_lines="7-9  12-13  16-17  21"

# Deployments Concepts

When deploying a **FastAPI** application, or actually, any type of web API, there are several concepts that you probably care about, and using them you can find the **most appropriate** way to **deploy your application**.

Some of the important concepts are:

* Security - HTTPS
* Running on startup
* Restarts
* Replication (the number of processes running)
* Memory
* Previous steps before starting

We can use **OAuth2** to build that with **FastAPI**.

But let's save you the time of reading the full long specification just to find those little pieces of information you need.

Let's use the tools provided by **FastAPI** to handle security.

## How it looks

```Python
from .dependencies import get_token_header
```

would mean:

* Starting in the same package that this module (the file `app/routers/items.py`) lives in (the directory `app/routers/`)...
* find the module `dependencies` (an imaginary file at `app/routers/dependencies.py`)...
* and from it, import the function `get_token_header`.

But that file doesn't exist, our dependencies are in a file at `app/dependencies.py`.