You get: * pluggable authentication methods (literally adding JWT, session and cookie tokens takes one line of code * pluggable output serializers (want YAML?

You get: * pluggable authentication methods (literally adding JWT, session and cookie tokens takes one line of code * pluggable output serializers (want YAML? Plug in a renderer. XML? Same thing) * pluggable documentation generators * Utility methods for handling RESTful response types DRF has a staggering amount of features that, if implemented by hand, require a stupid amount of time and a 100% guarantee of subtle bugs.