what are python web frameworks

I've asked this question on some places but I never get a completely straight answer. I've heard a lot about web frameworks and only know a basic understanding. Okay is a web framework installed on top of server architecture like apache or is it its own thing? I've read a good amount about web frameworks and I like what I read, but I only have access to simple free apache web hosts. Python work开发者_Go百科s on it because I've tested it but I don't have a whole lot of freedom on it to install different kinds of software and such.

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It can be "its own thing", meaning it can listen on a port and service requests without Apache; or it can run under Apache or any other web server, for example as a CGI script. For an easy-to-swallow overview, see http://bitworking.org/news/Why_so_many_Python_web_frameworks

Also see What exactly is a web application framework?, it answers a very similar question.

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A web framework is a toolkit designed to make working with HTTP requests within a certain language easier. It usually provides things like URL routing and HTML templating, and may optionally provide a ORM. It may or may not come with its own web server. On Python they are usually written to WSGI, of which there are plenty of containers.