The universal property of strict polynomial functors

In characteristic zero, the category of strict polynomial functors is well-known to be the tensor abelian category freely generated by one object. We show that this property fails in positive characteristic, but that it can be repaired by restricting the class of tensor abelian categories considered. The new universal property recovers several known constructions and shows that Ext-algebras of strict polynomial functors act on cohomological computations in many other contexts.