What is Django?

Django  is a high-level, free and open source web application framework, written in Python programming language.  A Web framework is a software that supports the development of dynamic Web sites, applications, and services.

Django makes it easier to build better web apps quickly and with less code, it takes care of much of the hassle of web development, so you can focus on writing your app without needing to reinvent the wheel. It is free and open source, has a thriving and active community, great documentation, and many options for free and paid-for support.

Django was first released in 2005 and has been in continuous development since then.

Why Django?

• Batteries Included

“Batteries included” means that Django comes with most of the libraries and tools required for common use cases, out of the box. Such as Powerful ORM, Support for multiple database engines, Middlewares, Authentication, Session handling,  HTTP libraries, Multi-site support, i18n, template engine.

• Admin panel by default

Django has an customizable admin interface, so you can manage data using basic CRUD operations. It’s a very useful feature so you can start your project right away, without having to code this functionality. The admin panel can also be configured to have search customized column fields, customized filters, or the data can be grouped using a particular field. The admin panel comes with authentication and authorization out of the box

• Security

Django takes security seriously and helps developers avoid many common security mistakes such as  SQL injections, Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), Cross-site Scripting (XSS) and clickjacking, etc. A Django web application is fully secured with industry-standard user authentication systems.

• Versatile

Django can be (and has been) used to build almost any type of website — from content management systems and wikis, through to social networks and news sites. It can work with any client-side framework, and can deliver content in almost any format (including HTML, RSS feeds, JSON, XML, etc). Internally, while it provides choices for almost any functionality you might want (e.g. several popular databases, templating engines, etc.), it can also be extended to use other components if needed.

• Scalable

Django uses a component-based architecture (each part of the architecture is independent of the others, and can hence be replaced or changed if needed). Having a clear separation between the different parts means that it can scale for increased traffic by adding hardware at any level: caching servers, database servers, or application servers. Some of the busiest sites have successfully scaled Django to meet their demands (e.g. Instagram and Disqus, to name just two).

• Maintainable

Django code is written using design principles and patterns that encourage the creation of maintainable and reusable code. In particular, it makes use of the Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle so there is no unnecessary duplication, reducing the amount of code. Django also promotes the grouping of related functionality into reusable "applications" and, at a lower level, groups related code into modules 'Keep It Short and Simple’  (KISS).

• Portable

Django is written in Python, which runs on many platforms. That means that you can develop, debug and run your applications on many flavours of Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X. Furthermore, Django is well-supported by many web hosting providers, who often provide specific infrastructure and documentation for hosting Django sites.

• Community

Django has been around for a while now, and its large community makes the platform even better. As it's an open source project, Django is supported by active volunteers who constantly work on stabilizing and improving the framework. It has about 61.4k Github stars as of December 2021. Apart from the developers that directly contribute to Django, there are people in the community who develop great plugins to make app development easier for developers.

• Documentation

As a result of super huge community, Django has a suberb documentation. It has detailed quick-start guides, detailed release notes, backward-compatible changes. There are dedicated websites for the platform where you can find help for any issues that you may run into. If you need help with your projects, the community support can always be banked on.

Who uses Django?

Django is used by companies of various sectors be it internet services or telecommunications industry, or entertainment and food businesses, government applications, e-commerce and healthcare websites. Some popular websites and web apps that use the Django framework are :

1. Mozilla

2. Youtube

3. National Geographic

4. The Washington Post

5. Instagram

6. Dropbox

7. Opera

8. Spotify

9. Eventbrite

10. Dropbox

And many more websites use django.  According to SimilarTech, there were 88,456 websites built with Django as of Dec 2021