Python vs Go: What’s the Difference?

What Is Golang?

Go is an open-source programming language developed by Google. It is a statically-typed compiled language. This language support concurrent programming and also allows running multiple processes simultaneously. This is achieved using channels, goroutines, etc. Go has garbage collection, which itself does the memory management and allows the deferred execution of functions.

In this Go vs. Python tutorial, you will learn:

• What Is Golang?
• What Is Python?
• Why use GO language?
• Why use Python language?
• Features of Go
• Feature of Python
• Go vs. Python
• Disadvantage of GO
• Disadvantages of Python

What Is Python?

Python is a high-level object-oriented programming language. It has built-in data structures, combined with dynamic binding and typing, which makes it an ideal choice for rapid application development. Python also offers support for modules and packages, which allows system modularity and code reuse.

It is one of the fastest programming language as it requires very few lines of code. Its emphasis is on readability and simplicity, which make it a great choice for beginners.

Why use GO language?

Here, are important reasons for using Go language:

• It allows you to use static linking to combine all dependency libraries and modules into one single binary file based on the type of the OS and architecture.
• Go language performed more efficiently because of CPU scalability and concurrency model.
• Go language offers support for multiple libraries and tools, so it does not require any 3rd party library.
• It’s statically, strongly typed programming language with a great way to handle errors

Why use Python language?

Here, are reasons for using Python language:

• Python is a powerful object-oriented programming language.
• Uses an elegant syntax, making the program you write easier to read.
• Python comes with a large standard library, so it supports many common programming tasks.
• Runs on various types of computers and operating systems: Windows, macOS, Unix, OS/2, etc.
• Very simple syntax compared to Java, C, and C++ languages.
• Extensive library and handy tools for developers
• Python has its auto-installed shell
• Compared with the code of other languages, python code is easy to write and debug. Therefore, its source code is relatively easy to maintain.
• Python is a portable language so that it can run on a wide variety of operating systems and platforms.
• Python comes with many prebuilt libraries, which makes your development task easy.
• Python helps you to make complex programming simpler. As it internally deals with memory addresses, garbage collection.
• Python provides an interactive shell that helps you to test the things before its actual implementation.
• Python offers database interfaces to all major commercial DBMS systems.

Features of Go

Here, are important features of Go language

• Open-source project
• Created at Google
• Compiled language
• Easy concurrency support via goroutines
• Package management
• Static typing
• Features powerful standard library
• Garbage collection called goLand
• Concurrency support
• Great libraries
• Easy and readable code

Features of Python

Here, are important features of Python

• Easy to learn, read, and maintain
• It can run on various hardware platforms & using the same interface.
• You can include low-level modules to the Python interpreter.
• Python offers an ideal structure and support for large programs.
• Python offers support for automatic garbage collection.
• It supports an interactive mode of testing and debugging.
• It offers high-level dynamic data types and also supports dynamic type checking.
• Python language can be integrated with Java, C, and C++ programming code
• High-performance
• Simple, minimal syntax
• Fast compilation times
• Statically linked binaries which are simple to deploy

Golang vs. Python

Here are the major differences between Go and Python:

Go	Python
Go paradigms are Procedural, functional and concurrent language.	Python paradigms are object-oriented, imperative, functional, and procedural language.
Statically typed language	Dynamically typed language
More focused on being a system language.	More focused on writing web applications.
Go also deals with memory management.	Python offers memory management.
Go syntax is based on the opening and closing braces.	Python syntax uses indentation to indicate code blocks.
Go web programming offers a smooth debugging process.	Python is dynamically-typed, meaning that it checks for bugs at run-time.
Offers limited support for Object Orientation and functional concepts	Object-Oriented programming, which supports functional concepts
Go does not provide exceptions.	Python supports exceptions.
Go does not support object-oriented programming. Therefore it doesn’t have classes and objects.	Python has classes and objects.
Go does not support inheritance.	Python supports inheritance.
Go is ideal for system programming.	Python is a popular language which is used for solving data science problems
It has more verbose compared to Python.	It is less verbose compared to Go language.
It supports concurrency.	It doesn’t have any in-built concurrency mechanism.
Go language is more focused on being a system language.	Python language is more focused on writing web applications.
Go needs more code to perform the same number of actions.	Python needs fewer code compares to Go.
28.5 K Github stars	67.5 K Github stars.
Go developer ranges from approximately $64,089 per year	The average salary for a Python Developer is $120,359 per year in the United States.

Disadvantages of GO

Here, are cons/drawbacks of using GO language:

• Go is not a generic language
• API integration with Go does not have an officially supported Go SDK.
• Poor Library Support
• Fractured Dependency Management

Disadvantages of Python

Here, are cons/drawbacks of using Python language:

• Used in fewer platforms.
• Weak in mobile computing, hence not used in app development
• As Python is dynamic, so it shows more errors at run-time
• Under-developed and primitive database access layer
• Absence of commercial support