Specifically, to see Uvicorn, Starlette and FastAPI compared together (among many other tools).

The simpler the problem solved by the tool, the better performance it will get. And most of the benchmarks don't test the additional features provided by the tool.

The hierarchy is like:

* **Uvicorn**: an ASGI server
    * **Starlette**: (uses Uvicorn) a web microframework

    "root_path": "/api/v1"
}
```

but this time at the URL with the prefix path provided by the proxy: `/api/v1`.

Of course, the idea here is that everyone would access the app through the proxy, so the version with the path prefix `/api/v1` is the "correct" one.

And the version without the path prefix (`http://127.0.0.1:8000/app`), provided by Uvicorn directly, would be exclusively for the _proxy_ (Traefik) to access it.

But at some point, there was no other option than creating something that provided all these features, taking the best ideas from previous tools, and combining them in the best way possible, using language features that weren't even available before (Python 3.6+ type hints).

## Previous tools

# WebSockets

When defining WebSockets, you normally declare a parameter of type `WebSocket` and with it you can read data from the client and send data to it.

It is provided directly by Starlette, but you can import it from `fastapi`:

```python
from fastapi import WebSocket
```

!!! tip

```

### Interactive API docs

Now go to <a href="http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs" class="external-link" target="_blank">http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs</a>.

You will see the automatic interactive API documentation (provided by <a href="https://github.com/swagger-api/swagger-ui" class="external-link" target="_blank">Swagger UI</a>):

![Swagger UI](https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/img/index/index-01-swagger-ui-simple.png)

### Alternative API docs

furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE

      "url": "https://errors.pydantic.dev/2.1/v/int_parsing"
    }
  ]
}
```

because the path parameter `item_id` had a value of `"foo"`, which is not an `int`.

The same error would appear if you provided a `float` instead of an `int`, as in: <a href="http://127.0.0.1:8000/items/4.2" class="external-link" target="_blank">http://127.0.0.1:8000/items/4.2</a>

!!! check

# Generate Clients

As **FastAPI** is based on the OpenAPI specification, you get automatic compatibility with many tools, including the automatic API docs (provided by Swagger UI).

One particular advantage that is not necessarily obvious is that you can **generate clients** (sometimes called <abbr title="Software Development Kits">**SDKs**</abbr> ) for your API, for many different **programming languages**.

## OpenAPI Client Generators

## Other Return Type Annotations

There might be cases where you return something that is not a valid Pydantic field and you annotate it in the function, only to get the support provided by tooling (the editor, mypy, etc).

### Return a Response Directly

And an `APIRoute` subclass to use that custom request class.

### Create a custom `GzipRequest` class

!!! tip
    This is a toy example to demonstrate how it works, if you need Gzip support, you can use the provided [`GzipMiddleware`](../advanced/middleware.md#gzipmiddleware){.internal-link target=_blank}.