Django remains in the top ten for the most loved web frameworks. Assuming this is for good reason, what is Django used for? Well, web development would be the short answer. But the long answer is much more nuanced.
Django is a Python-based web framework giving developers the tools they need for rapid, hassle-free development.
You can find that several major companies employ Django for their development projects. Here are 9 global companies using Django:
- National Geographic
- Mozilla
- Spotify
- Disqus
- Bitbucket
- Eventbrite
- Prezi
If you’re interested in the topic and want to stay up-to-date with the main trends in the software engineering market, we have the best senior software engineers here at Trio to assist you.
To learn more about Django, where it is used, and why it is used, keep reading!
What Is Django?
Django is a high-level Python web development framework. Like many frameworks today, Django is also free and open source. Initially developed in 2005 and named after the guitarist Django Reinhardt, Django was born out of a practical need.
World Online, a web newspaper, was in need of software that could meet deadlines. The developers of World Online, Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison, wanted software that could take them from concept to launch in a short time frame.
The framework relies on the traditional model-view-controller (MVC) architecture, although Django designers prefer to call it a model-template-view (MTV) architecture. Using this pattern, there is a separation of concerns between the graphical user interface (UI) and the business logic.
The UI corresponds to the view in the MVC architectural pattern, while the model corresponds to the logic. The controller takes inputs.
In the MTV pattern, which MVC overlaps with, the template represents the view and the view represents the controller.
Besides Django’s intuitive architecture, the framework is designed for rapid development. This happens by implementing features that ease and speed up the development process.
Django’s grounding principles include low coupling, reusability, pluggability, minimal code, and ‘don’t repeat yourself’ (DRY).
For reference, DRY is a popular principle of software development aiming for reduced code and repetition. Many of the above Django principles can be encompassed within this concept.
Low coupling, for example, refers to a relationship between modules where making changes to one module does not greatly affect the other. The ability to have high cohesion with low coupling means less work down the line for developers.
Note that the framework uses Python throughout. Python has its own perks, including simplicity and versatility.
Related reading: Django vs. Flask: Which Python Framework Choose?
9 Examples of Global Companies Using Django
What is Django used for? Having a closer look at some Django applications will demonstrate how advantageous the framework might be for your own Django application.
These are 9 popular Django applications:
1. Instagram
Instagram is a social media application for sharing photos and videos. The app is also the world’s largest deployment of the Django web framework.
Python’s practicality and simplicity make the language a top-tier choice for Instagram. But after the platform scaled, efficiency became a bigger priority. Using Django, Instagram Engineering was able to build custom tools to meet this goal.
2. National Geographic
National Geographic is a television network and popular magazine series focused on delivering educational content in subject areas like science, culture, and history.
Django eases the development of data-driven, complex websites like National Geographic’s website. Django also has its own content management system (CMS) called django CMS which the National Geographic’s Education page relies on.
3. Mozilla
Mozilla is the global nonprofit you can credit with the creation of the popular Firefox browser. Though it may seem hard to believe, Firefox is better and faster at handling some processes than even Google Chrome, mostly where load management and RAM consumption is concerned.
With Django, Firefox can tackle large amounts of traffic and API hits in a more efficient manner.
4. Spotify
Spotify is an audio streaming provider. Users listen to digital music (and sometimes podcasts) around the world through the internet.
Python is used for Spotify’s back-end services and data analysis. And Spotify uses a Django app or two to increase functionality.
5. Pinterest
Pinterest is another social media platform like Instagram. But although you can share images just the same, Pinterest’s primary concern is that users gain inspiration for topics related to fashion, home, cooking, etc.
The platform’s user-friendly interface is to blame for much of its appeal. Django’s open-source capacity means Pinterest can modify the framework for its needs.
6. Disqus
Disqus allows websites to feature commenting. Using Disqus, primarily blogs and online communities offer user profiles, social networking, and other methods of social integration to help users feel more connected.
Disqus has never been shy about deploying Django in their tech stack. In 2013, Disqus met a goal of handling 8 billion page views per month and 45,000 requests per second, thanks to the scalability that Django can provide.
7. Bitbucket
Bitbucket is a big name in the developer community. Developers use version control systems (VCS’s) to push and pull code changes to a repository online. This methodology paves the way for easy collaboration.
Bitbucket is a popular repository hosting service. Launched in 2008, Bitbucket made its big debut only two years later when Atlassian acquired the service, owing its quick turnaround time to Django’s prowess.
8. Eventbrite
Eventbrite is an event management and ticketing service. Users access Eventbrite via app or web and can find local and non-local events to attend for virtually any price, including free.
With COVID-19 entering the picture, Eventbrite has not lost sight of its utility and now users can find online events as well.
In 2010, Eventbrite made the decision to migrate to Django. They felt moving to Django would incite a more feature-rich and vibrant community.
And in the short term, Django brings about benefits such as URL routing, form building, unit tests, and more.
9. Prezi
Prezi is a website that permits users to build interactive presentations. When powerpoints are a little too square to tell the story you want, Prezi is the way to go.
Prezi actually runs on Django CMS, a content management system (CMS) written using the Django framework. Giving its user base dynamic, fully responsive designs is one of the principal reasons Prezi chose to migrate to Django.
Fantastically enough, there is an entire Prezi explaining Prezi’s use of Django over the years, created by Szilveszter Farkas, a former developer at Prezi.
5 Advantages of Django
Rather than asking what Django is used for, you may be wondering why you should use Django in the first place. Well, Django has many advantages to offer.
1. Simple
Because of the aforementioned Django principles, using the framework for development is fast and simple.
Pluggability and reusability signify that the framework allows developers to take parts of the codebase and repurpose them elsewhere in their programming. Through this method, developers can save time in development.
2. Easy
In that same vein, Django is easy. Django depends on Python, a fan-favorite in the development world. The Python philosophy emphasizes code readability. Several features, like Python’s use of significant whitespace, highlight this philosophy.
3. Comprehensive
Most of those who are familiar with Django will agree that the documentation for the framework is comprehensive as well as useful for quick references.
While you may not readily understand the importance of good reading material when it comes to software, its real-world applications are vast. Well-written documentation is a defining characteristic of excellent software.
Django is comprehensive in more than one way. It is sometimes referred to as a “batteries included” framework.
To put it one way, Django is equipped with most or all of the libraries and tools that you’ll ever want, including a template engine, Django ORM, multi-site support, authentication, HTTP libraries, and more.
4. Secure
Cybersecurity is a large concern for technical professionals in this day and age. Thankfully, Django’s security system can prevent the likes of clickjacking, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection and releases new security patches in a timely manner.
You might want to know the following definition to understand what exactly Django protects you from:
- clickjacking — the act of tricking a user into clicking something that is not what it seems, which usually results in losing confidential information or downloading malware
- cross-site scripting — occurs when malicious scripts are injected into trusted websites
- SQL injection — a code injection technique where malicious SQL statements are inserted into data-driven applications
5. Scalable
The security and fully loaded toolkit Django offers make the framework a good choice for businesses that want to scale their Django applications at some point.
As an illustration, using Django, you can use clustering or load-balancing to distribute the application across servers.
Clustering is a type of multiprocessing where a group of workers, or Python processes, pool together and handle tasks. This improves efficiency.
Load balancing results in the same effect. In a Django application, load-balancing would prompt a methodical distribution of application traffic to multiple servers.
What Are the Limitations of Django?
Though your Django application will be scalable, fast, and secure, there are some disadvantages of Django that might make you rethink using the framework.
First, Django is not the best for small projects. While it’s great for scalability, for something on the simpler side, Django is a bit bloated. This is because Django calls for a lot of coding, which takes up bandwidth and processing time.
Perhaps for the same reason, Django has a steep learning curve. The documentation might be admittedly good, but Django comes with a lot of features and configuration that isn’t intuitive to developers.
Another common criticism of Django is that it is too monolithic. Even though all the batteries are included, the diversity of the batteries in the package are rather sparse. For developers who often relish in having an abundance of optional dependencies, this means more coding and more work.
How To Hire the Right Django Developer
Hiring the right Django developer for your Django application requires that you understand Django enough to know what to look for. You’ll need to know how Django operates, how Python operates, and how web development in general works — if only just a little bit.
This may seem like quite a task, but in order to hire the right person to build your Django application, you should hire someone who has all the right skills to fulfill your project’s vision.
In other words, do your research. Check out Trio’s article on how to hire remote developers for more information.
Conclusion
What is Django used for? As you can see, Django is used to make complex, large-scale web apps from Instagram to Firefox. The framework is both comprehensive and simple, although it does have its disadvantages.
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