websites written in django

Top 12 Popular Django Website Examples To Consider in 2024

Python is one of the most beloved programming languages in the world today. Its popularity has been rising ever since it was released, and it is a top choice for many businesses worldwide. A great advantage of the Python programming language is the numerous frameworks and libraries available in the market.

Talking about one such Python framework, Django is the best framework for Python according to this JetBrains Developers survey 2021 and is used for creating high-performing web applications.

Want to build a Python website using Django? Worried if Django is the right choice for you? We have the answer right here for you! 

We have curated a list of the top 12 Django website examples in this blog. As a Python web development company , we also use Django in a lot of our projects. We have taken inspiration from other companies who have showcased exceptional growth with Django.

Along with discussing some business giants, such as Netflix and National Geographic, that use Django in their websites, we will also look at the criteria for choosing Django in your project.

But first, let’s briefly look at Django and understand why so many businesses trust it with their websites and apps.

Table of Content

What is Django : A Glance

Why do companies use django, 12 highly successful django website examples of 2022.

• Pros and Cons of Using Django Framework

When Should You Use Django in Your Project?

Which famous website uses django, why is django so popular, is django better than flask.

Django is a full-stack open-source web framework that is used for creating large applications using Python language . Developed by web programmers Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison at Lawrence Journal-World newspaper, Django is a highly productive solution for building web applications using Python. 

Although initially created to meet the needs of the Lawrence.com website, Django soon became popular due to its feature-rich functionalities. It supports rapid and clean development following a DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) approach.

Django provides reusable models, functions, classes, and code snippets to avoid writing code for regular tasks. Part of Django’s widespread usage is the ease and speed of development it offers. In a matter of days, you can build a fully functioning app; as with the available libraries, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel and focus on developing your website’s business logic.

Django is a widely popular framework preferred by developers due to the multitude of features it offers. Offering a set of reusable components, Django applications are fast, scalable and flexible.

The MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture enables easy distinction between different layers of a web app. You can work with the application’s visual presentation and logic independently, and Django will automatically update and sync the changes. MVT or Model-View-Template architecture is another way Django developers like you refer to the Django architecture as it uses templates instead of components.

Django has a powerful templating engine that works on its personal markup language. Templates are HTML code files that are used to display data- be it static or dynamic . Templates contain no application logic, only having information regarding visual content.

The Django templates are used for generating dynamic HTML web pages.

“Don’t repeat yourself” Python employs philosophy to provide developers with a clean, manageable working environment. Django enforces the DRY principle in everything, creating a single space for storing each distinct object. Django normalizes the values everywhere removing redundancies and allowing the developer to focus on the application logic.

Developers chose Django because it comes with a full-featured, secure user authentication system . It handles user accounts, manages cookies, user groups, and sessions, and keeps track of permissions. This lets you easily build sites that allow users to create accounts and safely sign in and out of the accounts.

Django has a state-of-the-art security system that helps developers against common security lapses such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, clickjacking, and cross-site request forgery .

The Django REST framework (DRF) is a component toolkit built on top of the Django framework for creating REST APIs . An API is an interface for interacting with databases. RESTful APIs are conformed to the REST architecture and are used for listing, modifying, creating, and deleting data on web servers using the HTTP protocols.

With DRF, developers have access to web browsable APIs with a huge Django community backing and easy-to-use documentation.

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According to SimilarTech , currently there are more than 80 thousand active websites made with Django. A full-stack batteries-included framework, Django is used by companies of various sectors be it internet services or telecommunications industry, or entertainment and food businesses. 

With so much focus on security and user privacy, the Python-based framework is a top choice for government applications and e-commerce and healthcare websites. Some popular websites and web apps that use the Django framework are –

Having a user base of over 2 billion, YouTube is considered to be the 2nd most popular search engine after Google. A video-sharing platform, youtube, allows users to upload videos and earn money through traffic generated.

Youtube is a prime example of the capabilities of Python and Django for robust dynamic applications. Django enables the website to handle high traffic demands and support millions of data requests daily.

Mozilla Firefox

One of the most popular browsers, Mozilla, has to handle huge amounts of users. Given the number of requests they receive via the API, Mozilla had to switch from PHP and  CakePHP to using Python and Django web frameworks for their website. The Mozilla support site and the multitude of add-ons and plugins for their web browser are developed with Django.

National Geographic

National Geographic is an organization that explores and protects our world. It is another great example of a Django application. The website uses Django to build a custom content management system to manage its content, from images to advertisements to modules.

The Washington Post

Django was originally developed to meet the content requirements of the Lawrence Journal-World website. Therefore it is no surprise that the worlds’ leading newspaper and magazine sites such as  The Washington Post, The Guardian, or The New York Times also use Django for their applications.

The Django CMS handles large amounts of data generated by the Posts’ daily audience and offers a highly scalable application. The speed and performance of such a large-scale app with such robust features are note-worthy.

From the beginning, Instagram has used Python as a part of its core technology stack and is one of the best Python Django examples. After multiple migrations, Instagram is currently running on Python 3.5. The co-founders of Instagram used the Django web framework to create a quick working prototype in under 2 weeks.

Since Django does not require any external plugins and addons, it is perfect for quickly developing web apps like Instagram without applying out-of-the-box methods. Today, Django supports millions of users of Instagram and is continually updated with new features.

Another advantage of Django that the Instagram developers prefer is its cross-platform usability . The same features can be developed quickly for Android and iOS applications and released simultaneously.

Django is a popular framework for developing social media platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Reddit. It has utilities to deal with massive amounts of data and handle multiple user interactions every second.

Pinterest has around 250 million active users, so it is important to have a high-performing website that has speed and scalability. Pinterest uses Django to handle thousands of users simultaneously and enable managing followers, boards, pins, and posts.

One of the world’s largest cloud storing applications, DropBox has revolutionized the data storage process. Using the cloud, you can access your files anywhere and from any device.

Dropbox is the most famous and popular cloud storage application for documents, videos, graphics, and photos. Dropbox allows us to store, sync, and share almost anything using Python’s power. Python was used to build the backend and client software of Dropbox. With Django, developers were able to quickly add features such as user history access, version control option, account synchronization across multiple devices, and file-sharing services.

The Onion is another great Django website example. A satirical newspaper that reports on world news in a humorous manner, The Onion developed an online website version in 1996.

Since then, all publications, designs, articles have been published online. The Python website was so successful that the company ceased print publishing in 2013. Today, it is one of the most famous sources of news. Django was used for developing all the features and functionalities of the site. 

Spotify uses a combination of Java, Python, and C++ for their mobile app and website.  Spotify, working on multiple devices, allows users to download and listen to music. It is a famous platform, with many artists releasing their albums directly on it.

It handles a vast amount of data of millions of users, creating personalized playlists and recommendations using Python’s Machine learning capabilities. The Django framework was the perfect choice because of the need for Fast backend and machine learning options.

Disqus is a website comment plugin service that enables users to engage in the comment box. One of the most popular comment plugin options of today, Disqus offers vast customizations using Django.

With the capability of handling thousands of users at a time, the development team at Disqus used Django’s scalability, maintainability, and high-performance speeds. 

The Disqus engineering team, along with using Django extensively in their platform, also developed Sentry, an internal tool for monitoring errors, bugs, and app crashes. Sentry is open-source software that various companies and organizations use for error checking. 

Sentry supports more than 30,000 companies and their projects, including Instagram, Reddit, Prezi, and DataDog.

Since security is highly important in Django, Python is often used along with Django in government applications and healthcare websites. One such example is the website of the USA National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA. The Django website manages more than a million users on a daily basis. 

Although relatively simple in its design, the NASA website supports high-definition videos of space and most importantly meets the high-security requirements of the company. 

These are some examples of popular websites built with Django that showcase its many features. Having such highly-acclaimed websites in its portfolio, Django is a top framework of choice for web developers.

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But before deciding if your company should use it, look at some of the pros and cons of using Django on websites. 

Pros and Cons of Using Django Framework 

Some of the advantages and disadvantages of using Django as a framework for your web application are –

• Highly efficient – From the conception of the idea, to coding and production to release, Django makes the website development process both cost-effective and efficient.
• Batteries-included – In-built libraries and packages enable common tasks such as user authentication, content administration, custom menu designing, session management, and more.
• Admin Panel – The Django admin panel is automatically generated when you create your application. It is a highly customizable and easy-to-use admin interface.
• SEO-friendly – SEO optimization tools are offered by Django for making your website a search engine favorite
• Versatile – As discussed, Django can be used for varied functions and services. It is versatile and supports many technologies.
• ORM support – You write all the table definitions in simple python code, and the ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) layer translates it to the appropriate query language. It also facilitates CRUD operations.
• High-performance – Django websites are very fast and performative handling millions of users expertly.
• Secure – Django provides support against a lot of security attacks such as Cross-site scripting(XSS), Clickjacking, SQL injection, and Clickjacking.
• Clean, pragmatic design – A robust ecosystem with multiple good design practices that provide developers with a straightforward developing environment for web projects.
• Monolithic – Requires a lot of memory and space. High CPU usage is also a problem.
• Not for small projects – With the batteries- included approach, Django can become too much for a small scale project.
• Long lines of code required
• Comparatively slower than other backend frameworks
• Full knowledge required to implement correctly
• ORM is ever-present – It cannot be disabled and everything in Django, be it frontend or backend development, will use ORM.
• Everything has to be explicitly defined. There is a lack of convention in Django.

Django is a multi-faceted framework that has varied usage. But as seen, it also has some cons that you should try to avoid. It is best to use Django when you will be benefited through its advantages and not hindered. 

We recommend using Django when you are developing a project that ticks one or more of the below-mentioned points. 

• You have a highly data-driven website
• Developing a robust application using Python
• You are likely to face heavy user traffic
• Long term projects that will undergo multiple updates
• Large development teams that require standardization and consistency
• Customizable web applications such as social media websites
• Require a platform for secure transactions such as eCommerce and Online banking websites

Frequently Asked Questions

Django is one of the most widely used frameworks for website development. With high market value, Django is the preferred technology for businesses such as Instagram, Eventbrite, NASA, Mozilla, Google, and BitBucket.

Django is a high-level, full-stack Python web framework used for developing large-scale, robust websites. Its popularity curve is always increasing due to its flexibility, productivity, high security, clean UI and batteries included approach.

Both Django and Flask are Python-based web frameworks that are used for website development. While Flask is a simple, minimalistic micro-framework or Python, Django is a full-stack development framework. Each has its own set of use cases and should be preferred accordingly for businesses.

Django is a robust framework for web app development preferred by popular companies. The flexibility, security, scalability, and vast array of plugins and libraries it provides, makes it one of the most used frameworks today. 

If you are building long-term solutions in the form of large, scalable applications, Django is the ideal choice for you. For expert guidance, you can contact Monocubed, where our team of developers will assist you in all your development needs.

For more information on Python and Django, you can read our collection of blogs on Python . Please subscribe to our newsletter, if you would like to receive daily blogs and updates on web development.

Jeel Patel is the Founder of Monocubed and is the main curator & writer of the content found on this site. With ideals of quality, commitment, and perseverance, he believes in creating lasting business relationships with the clients.

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Django Examples: Top 18 Django Websites

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Table of contents, what is django, rapid development, scalability, versatility, big reference base, 1. instagram, 2. pinterest, 4. the onion, 10. eventbrite, 12. mozilla, 13. yahoo maps, 14. dropbox, 15. the washington post, 16. national geographic, 17. bitbucket, final thoughts on top 18 examples of best django websites.

Nowadays, having a dynamic and scalable website is a must. Without one, your business might as well not exist. With that said, you might be wondering which programming language or framework is best suited for that purpose. We recommend using Django .

With a focus on simplicity and rapid development, Django is a top choice for companies of various sizes from various sectors. Its popularity comes from the number of websites it helped create. From social media platforms to government websites , Django has proved its reliability time and time again.

In this article, you’ll find a list of the best Django websites, as well as a brief look at what Django is and the benefits it offers. Check it out!

Django is an open-source web framework written in the Python programming language . It’s used by hundreds of thousands of developers around the world, and for good reason: Django comes with a practical set of reusable models, classes, functions, and code snippets.

As a result, it allows for rapid development of top-quality applications that are both maintainable and secure. At present, Django apps are at the core of a wide range of projects involving big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning .

Why should you use Django?

Django owes its success to the many advantages it offers. Below you’ll find a list of the most important ones.

Django is based on the principles of rapid development. You can reuse existing code, as well as run more than one iteration at a time without starting the entire schedule from scratch. Both of these things make Django a huge time-saver.

Django is also incredibly scalable. In fact, you can be sure that it will scale well into the future due to frequent fixes, updates, and security patches. In consequence, you can use the framework to tackle projects of any capacity and size.

Django can be used for a variety of web projects. Its most common use cases include prototypes and minimum viable products, customer relationship management systems, and social media platforms.

Django has a great out-of-the-box security system. It includes protection against cross-site scripting, request forgery, SQL injections, and clickjacking. So, if you build an application using Django, you should be able to avoid common security issues with ease.

Django has been around since 2005. Because of that, it boasts an impressive set of documentation. If you’re struggling with a problematic function in your code, you should be able to look it up in hundreds of different Django tutorials and reference guides.

18 best Django website examples

Now that we’ve covered some basics about Django, let’s move on to the most successful websites built with Django.

We advise you to think of each one not only as an example, but also as a potential source of inspiration for what Django can help you accomplish.

Instagram is among the most popular social networks in the world. Its users can post photos, like and comment on photos posted by other people, and delve into the lives of close friends and celebrities alike.

At present, the web version of Instagram is one of the best examples of how the Django framework can be used. Since it doesn’t require any external plugins and addons, it allowed the co-founders of Instagram to develop the very first version of the app in just two weeks.

Instagram started growing very quickly, and the developers behind it began looking for new technologies to power its systems. In the end, the team stuck with their Python and Django tech stack, whose scalability and efficiency give the platform the capacity it needs to handle thousands of user interactions every single second.

In short, Pinterest is a social networking platform where you can collect and share images of anything you find interesting. Just like Instagram, it was built on Django.

Since Pinterest has more than 400 million monthly active users, it needs a website that is both fast and scalable. Django is the perfect fit for such a project, giving the platform the tools it needs to process huge amounts of data.

Google has been using Python in a large number of their products for a very long time. The company saw the language’s potential and decided to make use of it as often as possible. In fact, Python and Django are what powers Google Search.

As a result, the search engine can process and analyze large volumes of data with ease. To give you a general idea of how powerful it is, Google processes over 40,000 search queries per second . It wouldn’t be possible without an effective web framework .

The Onion is an American newspaper that publishes satirical articles on world news. Its online version launched in 1996, and it quickly became one of the most popular sources of news on the internet.

The first version of the website wasn’t developed using Django. After all, the framework would only come out nine years later. However, its creators did make a switch to Django in 2009. The main reason for doing so was Django’s focus on simplicity and clean code. It made maintaining the website and testing core changes much easier.

Did you know the National Aeronautics and Space Administration used Django to build their website? First, Django supports the use of incredibly high-definition videos and images of space, which are one of the main highlights of the NASA website. Second, it meets very high security standards, which helps protect the site against common security threats.

With close to 2 billion active users, YouTube is considered to be the largest video sharing platform on the internet. While it was first built in the PHP programming language , its rapid growth forced the team to switch to Django.

By simplifying its code, Django made the platform a lot easier to maintain. Moreover, the framework gave YouTube the capacity to effectively scale up to meet the demands of their growing audience.

Reddit is a network of communities where you can post about anything you want, as well as react to things posted by other people. It has 52 million daily active users, and 430 million users who log in at least once a month. Quite a few of the site’s functionalities were developed using Python and Django.

Another Django website is Quora—an online platform meant for asking questions and providing answers. You just need to create an account, find a topic that interests you, and either ask a question or type out an answer to someone else’s question.

Quora chose Django because of its simplicity and efficiency. It made collaborating and testing new features easier to deal with.

Spotify is a digital music streaming service that gives you access to millions of songs and podcasts. Some of its key features include listening to music across different devices and providing its users with personalized playlists. Both of those things are handled using Python and Django.

Eventbrite is a self-service ticketing and event management platform. It allows anyone to create and sell tickets to any event, whether it’s a rock concert or a yoga session.

The platform was originally built with Python and its native frameworks. However, like with many other websites on our list, it simply wasn’t enough to deal with the platform’s growth. So, Eventbrite decided to switch to Django. Due to its scalability, the platform can now adapt to any audience size with ease.

Disqus is a third-party system that provides hundreds of thousands of sites with a commenting system. It also gives website owners the option to analyze user activity, advertise, and access various customer engagement tools. For that reason, Disqus reaches more than half a billion unique visitors per month.

Django helps Disqus manage high traffic volumes and ensure top-quality performance. In addition, the Disqus development team used Django to create Sentry—an internal tool used for debugging and error tracking in real time. Right now, Sentry is used by more than 30,000 organizations worldwide, including Reddit, Instagram, and Prezi.

Mozilla is a well-known web browser used by more than 200 million people every month. At first, it relied on PHP; however, with a quickly growing user base, Mozilla had to look for a solution that would be more suitable for managing large amounts of traffic.

With that in mind, the company decided to switch to Python and Django. Right now, the Mozilla support site, add-ons, and plugins are all developed with Django.

When it comes to Yahoo, the company prefers to use Node.js for their projects . Yahoo Maps is an exception, as its backend was developed using Python and Django.

As the name suggests, Yahoo Maps is meant to help you look up street maps and obtain basic driving directions. While it’s not as popular as Google Maps, the platform does have its avid users who swear by the mapping service’s reliability.

Dropbox is a popular cloud storage application that lets you save and share files online. For that reason, it’s frequently used for collaboration within various organizations, from universities and non-profits to large corporations.

The Dropbox engineers built its backend using Python. Doing so allowed the team to develop the entire application relatively quickly. Afterward, with the help of Django, they were able to add an option to sync an account across different devices and, most importantly, share files with other users.

The Washington Post is one of the world’s leading newspapers, so it’s not surprising that its online version is visited by millions of people every month. Django is key in handling the huge amounts of data generated by such a large audience. The use of the framework results in website performance so fast and efficient, many companies can only dream of it.

National Geographic is a popular monthly magazine published by the National Geographic Society. Its online version uses a Django-powered content management system. With it, developers can easily manage the website’s content, from modules and advertisements to individual images.

BitBucket is a Git-based repository management solution designed for professional teams. It helps engineers store and manage code, as well as track any changes made to it.

The platform’s developers chose Django due to its strong performance and scalability. The framework made it possible for BitBucket to handle hundreds of thousands of users on a daily basis.

Prezi is a cloud-based tool for creating eye-catching presentations. When it reached more than 100 million active users, its developers had to find a way to make it more scalable and efficient. In the end, they did so with the help of Django. The framework was used to build a custom content management system, which made Prezi faster and easier to maintain.

If you’re planning on building a top-quality website, you should consider doing so with Django. Its versatility and focus on rapid development will come in handy in small startups and large enterprises alike. In addition, you can quickly scale up any Django application you develop into a platform with hundreds of thousands of users.

Thank you for reading our article about the most popular websites made with Django! If you enjoyed it and want to learn more about Python and Django, we have other interesting resources you might want to check out:

• Django vs. Ruby on Rails Framework Comparison: Which Is Better?
• Top 12 Django Packages and Libraries
• 13 Best Django and Django REST Tutorials in 2022
• What Is Python Used for?
• Python vs. Other Programming Languages

In case you have any questions related to software development, get in touch with us !  With over 200 Python developers on board, STX Next is among the leading Django and Python experts in the world. Having successfully completed more than 320 Django projects , we’d be more than happy to help you out.

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Django Website Examples: 10 Popular Websites Built With Django

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Building a website and need to choose the appropriate programming language and framework? In this article, you will find your fascinating Python Django website example . But first, let’s find what is special about this framework.

With a variety of available frameworks, it may be challenging to choose the one you need. Statista suggests 25 of the most popular frameworks among developers, where 14.65% of respondents use Django. It is not the most popular one, but many companies choose this high-level Python framework for their development projects.

If you want to optimize your business by creating a high-quality web application, we have a solution. The UVIK consultants are always ready to assist companies in developing their Django websites. Here you can find the best IT experts to grow your business.

Is Django the best choice for web development?

Read on and explore successful examples of Django website development.

The Most Popular Websites Using Django

In 2022, over 29512 companies from different industries (machine learning, retail, real estate, AI, and software development) have started using the Django framework. And this number will increase significantly in 2024, as Django has much to offer developers.

The number of websites that use Django is challenging to count as some use the framework for their website development projects or switch to it over time. Here we will explore the best examples of websites made in Django . You can get inspiration and know more about the framework benefits for your future projects. You can get inspiration and know more about the framework benefits for your future Django websites.

NASA is one of the successful examples of Django websites. This framework ensures a high level of security that is detrimental to this company. The website operates flawlessly, even having about a million daily users. The site stands out with a user-friendly inference and design and supports high-definition videos.

2. National Geographic

National Geographic is a complex, data-driven website popularizing nature-related content. The company needed Django to meet their needs for custom content management and high-definition original clips. The National Geographic Education page relies on the Django content management system (CMS).

Netflix is one of the most famous Django-based websites , ensuring smooth user experiences for millions of subscribers. Anyone can use the website without special instructions. The framework helps give people the right recommendations for movies thanks to powerful analytics and machine learning capabilities.

4. Robinhood

Robinhood is a financial service known for commission-free investing and tools that helps people to build their successful financial future. It deals with stock, ETF, currency, and cryptocurrency trading. The broker uses powerful features of the Django framework to ensure flawless functioning and secure financial operations.

Another one of the popular websites built with Django . Boeing is a big company with thousands of employees that generated $62.29 in revenue in 2021. This multinational corporation designs, manufactures and sells airplanes, satellites, rockets, and telecommunications equipment worldwide. They aim to advance aerospace technology, and Django assists them with that. The framework enables the company to operate efficiently in a secure environment.

Uber is a large taxi driver network that is one of the best Django Python example websites . It grew from a small startup to a successful world company in ten years thanks to the active implementation of technological advancements. Django and Python ensure the handling of large amounts of data. They control Uber’s APIs, calculations, and business logic and ensure accurate estimations. Among the websites developed in Python/Django, this is really perhaps one of the most famous and functional.

Spotify helps people find, listen to and share music for free. It is very convenient to use as everyone can enjoy the results of algorithms selecting relevant music for listeners. They used Django for fast backend and machine learning options. The framework ensures fast processing and storage of massive amounts of data.

Django eCommerce Website Examples

There are not so many popular eCommerce sites that use Django. However, many online shops are built in this framework. A lot of IT experts work in the field of eCommerce site development and can create a high-quality website for online shopping for you. Django e-commerce tools include Oscar, Saleor, and Django-SHOP. Every company has unique needs, and a developer will incorporate into your project additional features for positive customer and administrator experiences.

Django is the right framework to build a shop, consisting of the following features:

• Scalable: Django scales excellently with business growth. The framework will help you to handle thousands of visitors at a time.
• Feature-rich: It is empowered with a variety of features for smooth user authentication, content management, and RSS feed in your online store.
• Secure: The Django website ensures a secure shopping experience for merchants and customers.
• SEO-friendly: Your web store will rank high in search engine results as Django uses best SEO practices. You can get lots of sitemap features and human-readable URLs for your marketing success.

RTW Shop is a Django-based eCommerce website consisting of many user-friendly functionalities. We use it as an example of an online shop site project to show you how it operates. The public-site features include login and registration, home, list of the available products, search products, adding items to the cart, payment, place order, profile, update profile, and logout.

Django is perfect for eCommerce startups, so if you plan to build an eCommerce platform, we are always ready to help. The UVIK web developers have experience building eCommerce websites , so you can fully rely on us for fast and efficient web development.

Famous Companies That Use Django for Their Web Apps

There are many Django using companies that use Django for building their web applications. This framework is a great choice to develop a project from scratch. Companies choose Django for rapid development and clean design. Let’s find amazing examples of Django web apps, and you will finally decide that this framework will work for your company.

Disqus is one of the largest and most popular Django websites with millions of users that benefit from the feature-rich commenting system. It’s a famous platform handling 50 million comments per month in 70 languages with the help of Django scalability. Django monitors errors and optimizes processes to ensure a flawless user experience. Disqus chose this framework because of the growing number of users and plenty of ready-to-implement options.

Instagram is a popular video and photo-sharing platform with 1.28 billion monthly active users . The massive audience requires advanced tech solutions, and Django helps Instagram process large amounts of data and user interactions seamlessly. The co-founders of Instagram started easily with Django and developed the first version of the app in about two weeks. Now we all can benefit from a custom and efficient tool.

YouTube is a world-popular video-sharing platform that uses Python and the Django framework. Initially, it was developed as a PHP-based project, but it joined the Django community because of the rapid audience growth. Now they suggest new features frequently to satisfy users’ needs. And Django ensures the flawless performance of the video hosting.

Pinterest uses Django to handle tons of high-volume images and millions of user interactions. This social network is a place where people can follow each other and share pins and boards. The framework has rich functionality and maintains performance efficiently. Using Django, the Pinterest algorithms select the user’s feed according to their interests incorporating machine learning and AI.

Another Django web application example that is worth your attention is a cloud-based storage service Dropbox. Millions of users can access it online due to the Django framework that optimizes synchronization, sharing, and storage of large files. The cloud storage service used Django for the backend and client desktop software. Developers added a user history option and enabled account synchronization.

Why Do Companies Use Django

You can come across a lot of websites using Django, and there are many reasons they choose this framework. With the Django structure, companies benefit from a fast and easy development process for a reasonable price. It’s one of the best Python frameworks that optimize the work process of websites working with data and databases.

This free and open-source framework is based on an MVT architectural pattern. Django attracts developers and companies with a multitude of Django benefits . Let’s find more reasons why you should look for Django development for your web projects:

• It’s a developed ecosystem with a lot of third-party applications.
• It ensures a smooth and simple development process due to reusability and pluggability.
• This versatile framework can be used for developing CRM systems, CMS, communication, machine learning, document management platforms, and more.
• The framework generates semantic URLs that make it SEO friendly.
• Django has a customizable interface with an admin panel generated automatically.
• It is a framework with comprehensive documentation for quick reference.
• You will find all the necessary libraries and tools within the framework, including HTTP libraries, Django ORM, etc.
• Django has a solid security system protecting your web application or site from SQL injection, cross-site scripting, clickjacking, and other cyber attacks.
• It is a scalable framework for flawless load-balancing and clustering that boost efficiency.
• Django is fully packed with features for fast task execution.
• It’s great for developing high-load web applications due to the MVT (Model-View-Template) architecture.
• Django supports MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and SQLite databases.
• It has a powerful templating engine and markup language.
• The framework is easy as it depends on the Python code readability and use of whitespace.
• Django has a vibrant community with over 11,000 developers from 166 countries.

The UVIK experts can help you develop Django-powered websites . We have a lot of successful case studies , including eCommerce platforms, collaboration software, and web applications developed by our Python experts . They perfectly managed web scraping, data collection, and multiprocessing. So not wait to address our consultants as soon as you need support with Python web framework projects.

Final Thoughts

Looking at these successful Django examples, you understand that this framework is a smart decision for urgent web development. Have you noticed that websites made with Django have one thing in common? This is a modern look. A scalable, fast, and secure structure is suitable for any web application project.

If you are sure Django will satisfy all your needs about the website or web app development but do not want to lose time and money on IT experts’ research, we are here to help you. UVIK is a professional IT staff augmentation company that will find qualified Django developers for your company. You can contact us by filling out the inquiry form or following us on social media.

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Famous Sites Built with Django That You Probably Know

Building a website or an app usually requires dealing with roughly the same set of basic components. Under the components, we mean the ways to manage user authorization. That is, for instance, how a user signs in, attaches files, and more. These activities are pretty much alike. So, why not make them way easier and faster? How is it possible to significantly decrease development costs? Web frameworks emerged as a set of components designed to make building websites a better experience for every developer.

Table of Contents

What is Django?

Let us introduce Django, an open-source web framework based on Python. It was named after the jazz guitar player Django Reinhardt. The framework appeared somewhere between 2003 and 2005. It keeps on expanding its community worldwide. It enables fast development, as you can see from websites made with Django. Many say that speed runs through the DNA of this framework. A need to serve fast-paced newsrooms motivated the creation of Django.

Is Django Front End Framework?

No, Django is not a front-end framework. Django is a high-level Python web framework that simplifies the creation of web applications and Django social media app by providing many built-in features and tools for backend development. Django web framework follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, where it primarily focuses on the backend logic, data management, and server-side processing.

However, Django does come with some basic features for generating HTML templates and serving static files, which are part of the user interface (UI), but it’s not a dedicated front-end framework like React, Angular, or Vue.js. For front-end development, developers often use JavaScript frameworks or libraries in combination with Django web framework to create the user interface and enhance user interactivity.

What Are the Benefits of Using Django in Software Development?

Django is a high-level Python web framework that promotes rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. There are several benefits to using Django in software development:

Rapid Development . Django follows the “Don’t Repeat Yourself” (DRY) principle, which means developers can write less code while accomplishing more when developing a website using Django. Its built-in features and conventions enable rapid development of web applications.

Scalability . Django’s architecture allows for scalability, making it suitable for building small to large-scale web applications. Its scalability is evident from its use in large Python Django websites like Instagram and Pinterest.

Batteries-Included . Django comes with a plethora of built-in features, such as an ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) for database interactions, an admin panel for content management, an authentication system, URL routing, form handling, and more. This reduces the need to integrate third-party libraries for common tasks when creating Python Django websites.

Security . Django provides built-in protection against common security threats like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), and clickjacking. It also encourages secure coding practices, such as password hashing and protection against common vulnerabilities.

Community and Ecosystem . Django has a vibrant community of developers contributing to its ecosystem. This means extensive documentation, numerous third-party packages, and active support forums. Developers can leverage this ecosystem to extend Django’s functionality and solve various problems efficiently.

Versatility . Django is versatile and can be used to build various types of web applications, including content management systems (CMS), social networks, e-commerce platforms, and more. Its flexibility allows developers to tailor applications according to specific requirements.

Portability . Django applications are portable across different platforms and hosting providers. Whether deploying on traditional servers or cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, or Heroku, Django applications can be easily deployed and managed.

ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) . Django’s ORM simplifies database interactions by abstracting away the complexities of SQL queries. Developers can work with database models using Python classes, which makes database operations more intuitive and less error-prone.

Admin Interface . Django provides an admin interface out-of-the-box, allowing developers to manage application data easily. This feature is particularly useful during development and for content management tasks.

SEO Friendly . Django’s clean and organized code structure, along with its URL routing system, facilitates the creation of SEO-friendly web applications. Developers can optimize URLs, meta tags, and content for better search engine visibility.

Who Uses Django Technology?

What are Django framework examples? Django, a high-level Python web framework, is used by a diverse range of organizations and individuals across various industries. Some common types of companies who use Django technology include:

Tech Companies . Django is popular among tech startups and established tech companies alike. Django website examples include Instagram, Pinterest, Disqus, and Bitbucket.

Media Companies . Django is utilized by media companies for content management systems (CMS) and publishing platforms. Examples include The Washington Times, National Geographic, and The Guardian.

E-commerce Platforms . Django is used to power e-commerce platforms and online marketplaces due to its scalability and flexibility. Notable Django website examples Mozilla’s Add-ons website and The Onion Store.

Government and Non-profit Organizations . Django is employed by government agencies and non-profit organizations for various purposes, such as data management, citizen engagement platforms, and public information portals.

Educational Institutions . Website made with Django used in the education sector for building learning management systems (LMS), student portals, and academic research platforms.

Financial Institutions . Django sites is utilized in the finance sector for developing banking applications, financial analysis tools, and trading platforms.

Healthcare Industry . Django is employed in healthcare for building electronic health record (EHR) systems, medical research platforms, and patient management systems.

Startups and Small Businesses . Django sites are popular among startups and small businesses due to its rapid development capabilities and extensive ecosystem of libraries and tools.

Overall, Django is chosen by organizations and developers who prioritize rapid development, scalability, security, and maintainability for their web applications and services.

Top Websites Created with Django That You Probably Know

What are Django websites? It’s not that easy to understand how the mechanism works without having some examples. The following list of websites will give you a clue. We believe that you know most of these platforms.

These famous websites using Django that help people to interact, retrieve necessary information, get answers to urgent questions, buy goods and services, and do many other things will help us to analyze the main benefits of this high-quality Python-based open-source web framework known as Django.

Consider these Django websites more than just examples – they may serve as inspiration for how you can develop your projects. So, perhaps, it is the right time for you to start thinking about switching to Django or hiring engineers from Intellisoft to complete your project? Here is the list of Django framework examples:

To answer the question what websites use Django, Disqus will be first on the list. Disqus is a US blog comment hosting service. That is fairly one of the greatest apps built with Django. It allows you to implement comments and discussion options on your website, analyze audience activity, and customize ad impressions. Using Django’s infrastructure allowed the team not only to build the website quickly, but also keep scaling it up for millions of new users. Nowadays, the Disqus team uses other frameworks as well, but Django remains the best choice because of its ever-growing community and many ready-to-implement options.

Instagram is the most popular social network after Facebook, its parent company. Over 1.393 billion people use Instagram every month. It allows users to post photos and get into the lives of not only their friends, but also various celebrities around the world. Instagram is a mobile app, but if we talk about its web version, it is entirely built on Python Django.

Instagram, one of the fastest-growing social networks, is another example of a website that does not plan to switch from Python + Django. Why is it so? Instagram, has to handle huge amounts of data and user interactions (likes, posts, comments, etc.). With Django, the Instagram team can handle it all, in addition to benefiting from deployment-ready tools that allow them to focus on UI and UX.

Like iTunes, Spotify has changed the way people listen to, share, and purchase music tracks at no charge. The fact that its services are free with no compromise to quality makes this site so popular among both musicians and their fans. With its help, you can access your music library anywhere, on any device. The Spotify app is very convenient as it allows you to quickly find relevant music and add it to your favorite playlist. The developers chose Django for two reasons:

• Fast backend
• Machine learning options

With Django, not only did they get the full range of Python features, but they also made the most of it.

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A website that clearly needs no introduction. The largest video hosting platform YouTube is a part of Google Company, which uses Python and Django framework in many of its projects. YouTube is no exception. In fact, the entire gigantic platform is written on this framework.

It was first built in PHP, but the rapid growth of the audience and the need for fast implementation of new features led the team to join the Django community. The choice was completely justified, as audience growth hasn’t stopped (lucky for them) and new features appear quite often (lucky for users).

The Washington Post

Another answer on what websites use Django is The Washington Post. Interestingly, Django was originally created to support a content application for Lawrence Journal-World. The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Times, and other Django web app examples are now very scalable and can handle large amounts of data generated by their daily audience.

Pinterest is pretty much similar to Instagram, is one of Django uses. Its users can also share various pics, but only those that match their interests. Thus, a user should select a category first. For example, if a user creates a pin about the world’s fastest cars, you will get a lot of images of fast cars when you subscribe to this person.

This cloud-based Git repository, launched back in 2008, has attracted millions of developers. With 17 million requests and six million repositories per year, it is one of the busiest Django-based web apps.

The BitBucket team decided to use Django for several reasons. First, it is the thousands of experienced developers in their community. The second reason, which we mentioned earlier, is the set of Django solutions that are ready to be deployed.

That is fairly one of the most popular platforms built on Django. Thanks to this structure, Pinterest users can subscribe to other users and share their boards.

Google Search

Google has been using Python in many of their products for a long time. They have always seen the potential of this programming language and tried to implement it as much as possible and as often as possible. The company also uses Python and the Django framework for its main project, Google Search Engine.

One of the world’s largest data storage websites, or simply put, cloud storage. DropBox has created a new way to store data. Now, instead of a PC, users can keep their data on the cloud. Dropbox allows consumers to store, sync, and share almost anything using the power of Python.

The most famous and popular cloud app for storing documents, videos, graphics, etc. makes it possible to access your files anywhere and from any device. The only condition is a stable internet connection.

Python was used to create the backend and client software. This allowed the team to come up with a product relatively quickly. Using Django, the developers were able to add a user history option, synchronize the account across devices, and most importantly, add a file sharing option.

In general, Yahoo uses the Node.js platform for its projects. However, they decided to use the Python language to create their maps. Yahoo Maps is a regular, good map that allows you to have an idea of how you can get from point A to point B. In the CIS, this search engine is not popular, but in the West, it is a very large and frequently used search engine. The maps from Yahoo are considered reliable, so many people use them in their daily travels. They can help to get out of the woods when being lost.

Another Django site is Eventbrite, a ticketing service and event management platform. Originally built using Python and proprietary environments, it later migrated to Django to cope with the rapid growth of the platform’s audience and interaction volumes. Because of Django’s scalability, Eventbrite, like many other Django-built websites and Django examples, can adapt to any audience volume and constantly provide users with new updates.

Reddit is one of websites built with Django. It is the largest social news project. Users can post various articles, as well as comment and vote on other authors’ articles. It is enough to sign up at this service to use all those features for free. On this website, one will find thousands of online news and debates on various topics. Most of the functionality is done in Python alone.

Onion is one of Django website example, a satirical newspaper that has an online version. All publications, design, and functionality of their website are done in Python using Django.

Quora is one of the popular websites built with Django for questions and answers. It is like an FAQ section where all registered users can impose questions or leave comments and react to what other people say. On this website, users can ask various questions and other users can answer them or at least share some valuable tricks and hints. The more questions you answer, the higher your rating will be on this platform. So, if you don’t know the answer to something, the easiest way to get an answer is to ask Quora users.

One of the most popular browsers, Mozilla, must handle hundreds of millions of requests per month. Given the number of requests they get through the API, it’s easy to see why the team decided to switch from PHP + CakePHP to Python + Django. Mozilla’s support service and all of their browser add-ons now run on Django.

How Does Building a Website With Django Happen?

What can you do with Django? Building a website with Django involves several steps. Django is a high-level Python web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. Here’s a general guide to get you started Django website development:

Install Django . The first step toward Django website development is to have Python installed on your system. You can then install Django using pip, the Python package manager. Run the following command in your terminal or command prompt:

pip install django 

Create a Django Project . Once Django is installed, you can create a new Django project using the django-admin command-line tool. Navigate to the directory where you want to create your project and run:

django-admin startproject projectname

Create Django Apps. Django follows a modular approach where different parts of your website are implemented as apps. You can create a new Django app within your project using the following command:

python manage.py startapp appname

Define Models . Models represent the structure of your data. Define your models in the models.py file of your app. This involves creating Python classes that subclass django.db.models.Model.

Create Views . Views handle the logic of your web application. They receive requests from the client, process them, and return responses. Views are defined in the views.py file of your app.

URL Configuration . Define URL patterns to map URLs to views. This is done in the urls.py file of your app.

Templates . Templates are used to generate HTML dynamically. Create HTML templates for your web pages in the templates directory of your app.

Static Files . Static files such as CSS, JavaScript, and images are served directly by Django during development. Place your static files in the static directory of your app.

Migrate Database . Once you define your models, you need to create database tables based on those models. Run the following command to apply migrations:

python manage.py makemigrations

python manage.py migrate

Run Development Server. Start the Django development server by running the following command:

python manage.py runserver

Access Admin Interface (Optional) . Django provides a built-in admin interface for managing site content. Create a superuser account to access the admin interface:

python manage.py createsuperuser

Then, navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin in your browser to access the admin interface.

Write Tests (Optional) . It’s good practice to write tests to ensure your code behaves as expected. Django provides tools for writing and running tests.

Deployment . When you’re ready to deploy your Django website to a production server, you’ll need to configure a web server (like Nginx or Apache) and a WSGI server (like Gunicorn) to serve your Django application.

Final Thoughts

Of course, the number of sites built in Django is well over those discussed in this post. You can also check, for instance, Prezi, the official NASA website, or National Geographic. This is just a small part of all the sites which were created with Django tech.  Also, if you need qualified developers to help with your projects in Django, feel free to contact us at any moment!

About Kosta Mitrofanskiy

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15 Amazing Django Website Development Examples You Should Look At

Shahzaib Munawar

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• August 3rd, 2022

What Are Some of the Best Django Website Development Examples?

Django is a free, comprehensive, accessible website framework useful for almost any website development project. Python, a high-level programming language, has been used to create Django. Web developers Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison created it at the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper company. Django has attracted a thriving community quickly. Besides, several well-known websites, which significantly contributed to Django’s growth, used this framework. Developers commonly use and appreciate Django because of its variety of functions. Applications built with the Django framework are efficient, scalable, and versatile. As of May 2021, Django created 83,359 websites. This blog will look at the 15 best Django website development examples.

Let’s dig in!

Django Website Development-Why is Django the best choice?

Amateurs programmers think of Django as one of the several content management systems. It is a piece of software to create and manage websites. However, Django can also build systems for marketing emails, authentication, and filtration systems with flexible rules and complicated parameters. Furthermore, Django is able to develop platforms for learning algorithms, data processing, and intricate calculations. This framework allows for the quick creation of safe websites. Django handles a lot of hassle associated with web development, allowing you to concentrate on your project completely.

In a nutshell, Django helps create complex web applications because it is written in Python. Developers can easily edit, format, and change the Python syntax by adding fewer lines of code to build web applications.

Django Website Development Examples:

Here are some of the best worldwide websites built with the Django framework:

Firstly, we have Spotify. The free Spotify app lets you discover, play, and share songs with your peers. Spotify uses Python machine learning to build personalized and auto-generated playlists for listeners. Developers combine Java, Python, and C++ for this website and mobile app. Because of the requirement for a High-speed backend and computer vision features, the Django framework has been the ideal solution.

YouTube is a wonderful illustration of how Python and Django built reliable interactive applications. Thanks to Django, the website can handle heavy traffic needs and sustain millions of data requests daily. The team entered the Django network because of the audience’s swift expansion and the necessity to add new functions utterly.

3 Instagram:

It enables users to upload images, like others’ posts, and view the lifestyles of their friends and other people. It is entirely constructed using Python and Django. They can track and identify issues in their network in real-time. The Instagram team favors Django’s cross-platform usage as another benefit. They can manage the massive volumes of content and user activities that the platform processes because of Django.

4. National Geographic

A more outstanding illustration of a Django website comes from National Geographic. It is a company dedicated to discovering and preserving our planet. A creative and unique management system for the website’s content, including graphics, adverts, and modules, is built using Django.

5. Dropbox:

Next is DropBox. Dropbox has transformed the way data is stored and introduced a new method. Using the web, you can access your data from any location. Python created both the backend and the client software, while Django saves and distributes data, synchronizes accounts across various devices, and offers file history. On top of that, Django has collaborated as a blackened with Dropbox to serve as a file storage system for its users.

We use Disqus to add comments and conversation features to your website, monitor visitor behavior, and create ad serving. As of May 2019, it handled 50 million comments and had 17 million monthly views and 2 billion individual visitors from 191 countries. Disqus relies on Django to maintain excellent performance and handle heavy traffic loads. Django enables easy integration with WordPress and various other content management systems.

Mozilla is the second biggest browser all over the world. Initially, Mozilla’s technological stack comprised PHP and CakePHP. It is simple to understand why the team agreed to transition from PHP and CakePHP to Python and Django, considering the volume of queries they accept via the API. Mozilla’s help page is built in Django. The company also uses the framework to build support websites, add-ons, and extensions for their web browser.

8. The Washington Post:

The major news and magazine websites, such as The Washington Post, often use Django. Due to their excellent scalability, Django-powered newspaper websites can handle the vast volumes of data produced by a newspaper’s daily viewership. The company writes its programs in Python and uses a Django framework for web development.

9. Pinterest:

Pinterest consumers share various images, but only those that correspond to their preferences or hobbies. With almost 250 million regular users , Pinterest has a high-performing and scalable site. Pinterest uses Django to manage followers, pages, pins, and articles while handling thousands of users simultaneously. The website is undoubtedly the kingdom of Django websites. Django’s widely expressed framework helps in managing vast amounts of information and can accommodate thousands of user engagements per second.

10. The Onion

Another excellent example of a Django webpage is The Onion. Their website’s full functionality, layout, and articles are all created in Python using Django. The website had been so popular that the business stopped printing books in 2013. It is among the most well-known news sources nowadays. All the site’s features and applications were created using Django.

Ever wondered why NASA is so highly stable and user-friendly; despite having the heaviest visual content?

NASA uses the Django technology to deliver its website to 2 million active monthly visitors. They also frequently used Python with Django in governmental apps and websites for the healthcare sector. Although it has a brief appearance, the NASA website enables high-definition movies of space and, more critically, complies with the firm’s strict security guidelines.

12. Sentry:

Many businesses and organizations use the open-source program Sentry for error detection. Sentry, an internal utility that uses Django to track failures, defects, and app crashes, supports over 30,000 businesses and their initiatives, including Instagram, Reddit, Prezi, and DataDog. This application monitoring software integrates with Django to automatically report errors and expectations.

13. Google Search

Python + Django is a life-saving track for Google. Google used Python in several of its products for a very long period. The corporation’s flagship project, Google Search, is built using Python and the Django framework. They actively realized the significance of this technology and attempted to use it frequently and widely. Being the biggest browser company, Google needs to overcome an enormous load. The company adopted the Django framework to increase its variability and to manage content.

The biggest social media initiative is Reddit. Users can publish a variety of articles. Additionally, the community and you can vote for the publishment. This website can find tens of thousands of online articles and debates. The Reddit developers use Python for most of the site’s functioning. One of the insanely popular websites is also Django powered!

15. Yahoo Maps:

Lastly, Yahoo is on our list.

Yahoo typically used the Node.js framework for its projects. To generate their maps, they opted to use Python. You can use Yahoo Maps to find a path from point A to B. It is a conventional and excellent map. Django makes Yahoo a very reliable and go-to map. Although this search tool is vast and well-liked in the West, it is not very well-liked in the eastern regions. Since Yahoo Maps are trustworthy, many people use it for daily transportation.

Django Website Development- Wrap Up!

Django powers various websites all over the world. The web application development framework it employs is excellent. Industry, business, education, research, networking, communications, and retail are the industries that use Django the most. Django is a flexible platform with many applications. Because of its adaptability, efficiency, high level of security, clear user interface, and battery-included strategy, its appeal is always rising. Django is the best option for creating massive, highly scalable applications and lengthy solutions.

For the takeout, the following are the reasons big websites use Django as their foundational framework:

• Free and open source.
• Makes the website launch quick.
• Hassle-free web development.
• Assists in performing user authentication, content administration, site maps, RSS feeds, and others.
• Secure web application framework.
• Supremely scalable
• Performs content management, social networks, and scientific computing platforms.
• Python-based framework

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25 of the Most Popular Python and Django Websites

Updated: december 14, 2020.

We at Shuup are proud of the fact that we are built with Python on top of the Django web framework – and we are not alone. Some of the most popular and widely used websites and applications that you use every day are built using these same open source tools. The success of these shows the power of the Python language and Django framework.

Shuup is written in Python and benefits greatly from its inherent capabilities . Python was chosen for its reliability, clean code, and for the enjoyment of the developers working with it. It is extremely powerful and yet fun to work with. Here are some highlights of the most famous sites that seem to agree (Data provided by Hartmann Software Group and NetGuru ).

We all know YouTube as the place to upload cat videos and fails. As one of the most popular websites in existence, it provides us with endless hours of video entertainment. The Python programming language powers it and the features we love.

DropBox started the online document storing revolution that has become part of daily life. We now store almost everything in the cloud. Dropbox allows us to store, sync, and share almost anything using the power of Python.

Python also provides the power behind the most popular search engine in the world – Google. The programming language can handle the traffic and computing needs of the search engine and its connected apps.

Ready to launch your Python marketplace? Start today

Need help getting started? We’re here to discuss your business requirements.

Uber – one of the 2 biggest rideshare driver networks – uses Python for their API’s, calculations, and business logic . Python can handle tons of data and perform complex calculations like accurate driver ETA’s.

Lyft – the other largest rideshare driver network – uses Python for data processing and machine learning . Python can help predict models and behavior for machine learning uses and improvements.

Facebook – the biggest online community in the world – uses Python for a big portion of their technology infrastructure . Python helps handle millions of pic uploads, posts, and status updates.

Netflix is global, moving from movie streaming to movie and TV production powerhouse. Powerful analytics based on Python choose recommended movies and shows just for you.

Quora is the number one place online to ask a question and receive answers from a community of individuals. Relevant results are answered, edited, and organized by these community members. Python provides the functionality.

Get started building your Python marketplace!

Don’t know where to start? We’re here to help.

We all know Instagram as the place to share your life in pictures. The Instagram website is built using the Python programming language and allows users to browse, find and post pictures.

Spotify is an application that allows you to find, play and share music for free. With the options of a free ad based subscription or an ad free paid subscription, Spotify gives you access to the music you want. Spotify does this with the power of Python.

Shuup is an enterprise multivendor software platform you can use to build marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Grubhub, Fiverr, or SkipTheDishes. Let merchants sell products, services, rentals, and electronic goods through a scalable, multivendor ecommerce marketplace .

Have a Python marketplace idea? Start development today!

We’d be love to help you meet your business requirements.

Reddit is known as the front page of the internet. It is the place online to find information or entertainment based on thousands of different categories. Posts and links are user generated and are promoted to the top through votes. Many of Reddit’s capabilities rely on Python for their functionality.

Yahoo maps may be losing the battle to other map service providers, but it still holds some powerful tools. Yahoo’s map program runs on Python as well as many of its other programs.

Hipmunk is an online consumer travel site that compares the top travel sites to find you the best deals. Python powers the sites tools that allow you to find the cheapest hotels and flights for your destination.

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Django just celebrated its’ tenth anniversary proving that it can stand the test of time. We at Shuup chose Django as our web framework due to its scalability, security, rapid development and amazing community. Kenneth Love over at Treehouse provides some more great reasons to choose Django for your next project. Here are some popular Django projects that you might know (List provided by CoderFactory )

Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that allows users to showcase their interests through the posting of pictures. Users can also follow and share other users’ pictures and content all through the power of Django.

The Onion opened its website to provide an online venue for their satirical newspaper. The newspaper has for a long time been a source of entertaining articles on fictitious news stories. Django provides the framework for The Onion’s online presence.

This global comment hosting service provides an interface for comments on thousands of blogs and websites. It includes powerful social media integrations, analytics, and tools for managing one’s online presence – all powered by Django.

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Washington Post

The Washington Post’s website is a hugely popular online news source to accompany their daily paper. Its’ huge amount of views and traffic can be easily handled by the Django web framework.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s official website is the place to find news, pictures, and videos about their ongoing space exploration. Its’ huge amount of views and traffic can also be easily handled by the Django web framework.

Bitbucket provides a cloud based hosting site for source code management and collaboration. Developers can host their projects in Bitbucket to utilize many of their tools and services. The site and its’ tools are built on top of the Django framework.

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Reddit Gifts

The hugely popular Reddit website has launched an online, anonymous gift exchange and meetup platform called Reddit Gifts. The site connects users from around the world and facilitates the gift exchange between them. The Django web framework powers its’ functionalities.

Prezi is a cloud based alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint built on the Django framework. The site provides a virtual canvas that can be manipulated and zoomed into and out of. This provides the entire view of the presentation rather than individual slides.

Pitchfork brings indie music together and provides daily publications. The Django based platform provides a venue for criticism, commentary, news, and interviews. Its’ focus is on independent music.

The Python programming language and Django web framework are both tried and tested and have proven to be more than capable of handling even the most demanding of applications. We at Shuup love working with them and hope to inspire more to jump on the Python and Django bandwagons.

Check out our Python and Django development activity over at the Shuup Github

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15 Amazing Django Website Development Examples You Should Look At in 2023

Dec 29, 2022 13 min read

Dawid Karczewski

Senior full stack developer and CTO at Ideamotive.

Django helps to build secure and fast-loading web applications or websites. We present 15 famous Django website development examples that became successful projects. Can market monsters' experience show you how to stay ahead of your competitors? Absolutely.

The web programmers of the online version of the Lawrence Journal-World: Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison created Django in 2003-2005. They named it after the French guitar virtuoso Django Reinhardt (Rana Renard). Since 2008, the Django Software Foundation has been developing and updating the framework.

Several well-known websites have played an essential role in Django's success: Pinterest, Dropbox, Spotify, and The Washington Post. The Django community on GitHub currently includes over 900,000 developers worldwide.

What is Django framework

It’s the best web framework written in Python. This tool helps develop websites that work with databases.

Like any other framework, "Django" is a software platform on which the developer "hangs" additional application components:

• User interface;
• Scripts (scenarios) for running the elements of the application/website;
• Software libraries;
• Multimedia content (photo, video, audio);
• Security modules;
• Databases, etc.

The framework is responsible for the fundamental aspects of the product. And plug-in (replaceable) modules - for the specific functions of a particular application.

It allows you to:

• Speed up development;
• Simplify support;
• Avoid errors in the application.

What is Model-View-Controller (MVC) code and Model-Template-View

The Django framework written in the Python programming language follows the peculiarities of this language. The creators have implemented the MVC pattern in Django and used it in the framework's current version.

Model - business logic, i.e., a set of methods, rules, and constraints for working with data.

View - a component that displays data to the user depending on the change in the Model.

The controller is a software mediator that processes user actions and tells the Model how to change. The controller of the classic MVC model roughly corresponds to the level that Django calls the View, and the Template level implements in Django the presentational logic of the View. 

For this reason, Django's architecture is often referred to as the Model-Template-View (MTV):

• The Model is still responsible for working with the data (access, processing, validation, etc.);
• Templates determine how to display the information;
• The View describes what data to show to the user.

The principle repeats the concept of MVC, so Django is an MVC-compatible platform.

The  Django documentation  defines a model as "a source of information about data containing key fields and behavior." Typically, one Model points to one table in the database. The framework supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and Oracle databases.

Models contain information about data. Attributes or fields represent this data. Since the Model is a simple class, it knows nothing about the other layers of Django. Interaction between the layers takes place through the API.

The Model is responsible for business logic, methods, properties, and other data manipulation elements. Models also allow developers to create, read, update, and delete objects in the database.

The basic structure of the framework includes the following components:

• URL routers that redirect an HTTP request from a browser or other Web client to views;
• The View that processes the request accesses the Model and tells it exactly what data to use from the database to fulfill the request;
• A Model (database manager, ORM) that "pulls" the required information from the database and passes it to the View;
• HTML templates used by the View to display the data received from the Model to the user.

The framework includes highly specialized modules and features, including:

• Web server for product development and testing;
• Built-in dispatcher for exchanging events between application components via specified signals;
• An international system that adapts Django to different language and cultural environments;
• Built-in authentication and authorization modules, as well as the function to connect similar external entities;
• Filters for additional processing of requests (caching, compression, redirection, etc.);
• Admin interface for adding, editing, and deleting application/website content;
• Python interface for internal testing framework;
• Commenting tools;
• Protection module against cross-website scripting, password cracking, and other attacks.

Why is Django a good choice for web development? 

Inexperienced people think it’s one of the many content management systems (CMS). But Django is a tool that allows you to create and run web applications.

NOTE: The name of the framework emphasizes its versatility. As mentioned, it has a name after renowned jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt . Although two fingers of his left hand stopped working after an injury suffered in a fire, this musician played guitar masterfully. That is, the musician had to play chords with three fingers. 

The framework handles a large number of tasks and essential workloads that helps to create:

• CRM systems;
• Communication platforms;
• Room reservation services;
• Document management platforms;
• Algorithmic generators;
• Email newsletter platforms;
• Verification systems;
• Filtering systems with dynamic rules and complex parameters;
• Platforms for data analysis, complex calculations, and machine learning.

Following SimilarTech reports, you will find detailed information about TOP-websites that use Django. It powers thousands of websites around the world. This framework is also great for web application development. Let us look at what advantages web developers find in this tool.

If you ask experienced developers why they chose Django, you will get the following list of benefits.

Completeness

The Django framework has an all-inclusive approach. A developer can use it to create a web application without third-party components. It's handy for novice programmers as they do not have to get distracted by searching for additional tools to solve typical problems.

Versatility

Django is suitable for developing websites and applications of any type: content management systems (CMS), news or information resources, video hosting, social networks, etc. It can work with all files, databases, and client environments. A developer can take it from third-party sources if the "boxed" framework version does not include a component for implementing a specific product.

Maturity level

Django entered the IT market in 2005. It has changed and improved a lot in the 15 years of its existence. If you are unfamiliar with Django and are looking for an answer to a particular question, it’s easy to find this answer. Many specialists had solved the same problems before you and shared their experiences on the Internet. That's how the Django community works.

Reliability

The Django Software Foundation and the third-party community maintain and develop the software. They update, improve, and check the framework for bugs. Django applications are stable and contain fewer bugs than applications developed with other frameworks, CRM, or from scratch.

Admin panel

The Django admin panel generates automatically when you create your application. It saves the developer from having to make the admin panel manually. Third-party applications can be used to enhance the default Django admin panel and customize it to meet the needs of your project. You can also use the framework to customize the interface of the default admin panel.

SEO friendly

The code in Python is readable and understandable, even for untrained people. This is one of the factors that make Python web applications SEO friendly. Django generates semantic URLs. They are also called human-readable URLs or CNCs. Django applications also make it easy to implement other search engine optimization features.

Scalability

Django's architecture is based on the independence of each component. You can replace or change any component without affecting others. Django's capabilities allow you to develop and expand applications as traffic and workload increase.

Maintainability

Django allows you to reuse code and group related functions into separate modules. It lightens, shortens, and simplifies the structure of the application. When you hire a new developer, they can quickly understand the software architecture and provide high-quality support.

Django has built-in tools to protect against common hacking attacks. You can also effectively distribute access to data among users of different levels. It increases the security of the product and the stability of its operation.

Portability

Django's programming language is Python, adapted to all popular platforms. Applications developed on the framework work equally well on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux-based operating systems and their versions. Web hosts support Django with proper infrastructure and documentation.

Django is open source; anyone can use it to develop applications or websites for any purpose.

Flexibility

Django is a "moderately flexible" framework. It provides multiple tools for solving a problem and 1-2 approaches for using them. That is, the developer can choose between different options and at the same time not get lost in their diversity.

Extensibility

Plugins extend the functionality of Django. These software modules allow quickly adding the desired function to the website. The official catalog contains hundreds of plugins that will enable you to swiftly implement sitemap.xml on the website, manage access, connect to the Stripe payment system, and so on. If necessary, you can disable or replace plugins to adapt the application to the project's current needs.

Standard programming languages have libraries that are suitable for solving specific problems. In libraries, you can find ready-made solutions: functions, classes, configurations, etc. These solutions extend the possibilities of the language and simplify the creation of applications.

Django supports the use of libraries when developing web applications. Popular libraries are:

• REST framework, which facilitates the use of the API;
• CMS is a handy content management tool;
• Django-Allauth - with its help, you implement registration, authorization, and account management functions.

Django implements an Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) that enables your application to interact with databases (DB). ORM automatically transfers data from a database, such as PostgreSQL or MySQL, into objects used in the application code.

ORM accelerates the development of prototypes and finished web applications in Django. The Django developer does not need to know the language to interact with databases.

ORM also allows you to switch between databases with minimal code changes quickly. For example, you can use SQLite on a local server and switch to MySQL on a production server. However, using the same database during development and production is better to minimize errors.

Disadvantages 

Those who work in development know that all frameworks have disadvantages. We can highlight here the following ones:

Not suitable for small projects

Django's capabilities can overkill a small project. However, you can choose other frameworks in the Python ecosystem in such cases. For example, if you want to create a simple chat, it's better to ask skilled developers what framework is better to use.

Django is becoming a single and self-sufficient set of developer tools. It allows you to implement even large projects without relying on third-party applications and services, but it also slows down the development of the framework itself. Developers have to spend their energy on all the tools that are part of the core.

Deprecated ORM

Django has a database manager that allows it to work with different databases. However, it lacks some useful features that other ORMs have. The biggest drawback is the lack of integration with SQLAlchemy, the primary Python tool for working with databases.

Lack of multitasking

The framework does not allow separate processes that handle multiple queries simultaneously. Although developers are trying to solve the problem, they must use different approaches.

URL routing pattern

Based on the use of regular expressions (symbols and metacharacters) that define search rules. The mechanism works well, but its setting causes difficulties for beginners as it increases the entry threshold.

The process varies depending on the version of the framework and the hardware platform and operating system installed. Follow the recommended procedure for installing Django on a personal computer running Windows.

Installing a virtual environment

This step is optional, but it makes it easier for programmers to work with Django. With a virtual environment, you can run multiple Python applications independently. For example, suppose you have a project on the old version of Django. Once an updated framework appears, you can create a second project without affecting the first one. This way, you can take full advantage of the new version of Django without wasting time updating the previous project. To use a virtual environment, you must first activate it using the activate.bat file. You must do this every time you work on a project. When you finish the work, the virtual environment must be deactivated using the deactivate.bat file.

Versatile approach

It's a "moderately flexible" framework. It provides several tools to solve a problem and 1-2 approaches to their use. That is, the developer can choose between different options and at the same time not get lost in their diversity.

When to use the Django framework 

Today we can see on the web social networks, video hosting, music services, search engines, etc. developed on Django.

If you want your product to be successful, you should take consider using it if your tasks are as follows:

• You have high requirements for the stability of the application and its protection against hacker attacks;
• You anticipate a possible increase or decrease in the size of the project in the future;
• You plan to use different databases;
• There are limitations in terms of deployment time as well as financial support;
• You plan to use advanced IT technologies (e.g., neural networks) in the project;
• Different specialists (groups of developers) support and develop the project;
• There is not enough experience to develop web applications and websites from scratch;
• You need ORM support to avoid working directly with database queries.
• It is better to choose other options for the development of your project:
• When implementing a project with a complex, branched structure and broad functionality;
• Writing a simple application with minimal functionality that does not use the database;
• Implementing a project with a specific architecture and functionality that requires writing code from scratch;
• Lack of essential knowledge and experience with Python.

15+ Django website development examples

Using the following list of websites developed with Django, we want to analyze the benefits of implementing this platform. We hope this information will inspire you to build your project using Django.

№1. Youtube

Google's most prominent video hosting, YouTube uses Python and the Django framework in many projects. The popular and enormous platform YouTube is no exception.

Initially, the language was PHP, but the rapid growth of its audience and the need to implement new features led the team to join the Django community. The decision is evident because the audience is growing, and the internal architecture needs to be constantly adapted.

№2. Google Search 

Google has long used Python in many of its products. The company has consistently recognized the potential of this language and tries to use it as often as possible. The company uses the Python language and the Django framework for its main project, Google Search.

№3. Dropbox

Dropbox is one of the world's largest data storage websites, or, simply put, cloud storage. Dropbox has created a new way of storing data in the cloud. You can access your files from any device. The most popular and well-known cloud storage application for documents, videos, graphics, etc., allows us to store, sync, and share almost anything using Python.

The project's developers used Python to create the back-end and client software. It allowed the team to develop a product relatively quickly. With Django, the developers could add a user history option, sync an account across devices, and, most importantly, add a file-sharing option.

№4. Instagram

Instagram is one of the most popular social media worldwide. It allows users to post their photos, like others, and delve into their friends' and celebrities' lives worldwide. Instagram is a mobile application, but if we talk about its web version, built on Python Django.

From the beginning, Instagram has used Python as a core technology in its tech stack. The company has used several Python versions and moved to a dedicated Python 3.5.

Instagram processes vast amounts of data and user interactions (likes, posts, etc.). With Django, the Instagram team can handle all this and benefit from out-of-the-box tools that allow them to focus on UI and UX.

It helped Kevin and Mike, the co-founders of Instagram , develop the app's first version in about two weeks. According to Mike, it was effortless to get started with Django because it did not require a lot of solutions or a lot of customization and made testing more manageable.

Instagram became popular, and the company started looking for new technologies for its system.

The team valued different languages and frameworks but eventually chose Python and Django. Hui Ding , a former development manager at Instagram, says, "We were able to reach several hundred million users with our Python/Django stack, so we decided to move forward. The most important thing about this decision was that our engineers love Python. That's the reason people want to work for us."

What's more, Instagram uses Sentry to monitor and report Python bugs. Sentry allows them to track and detect bugs in their system in real time.

№5. Reddit 

Reddit is the largest social news project. Users can write various blog posts, comment on other authors' posts, and vote for them. You can find thousands of Internet news and disputes on multiple topics. Most of the Python functionality helps this platform reach such an enormous audience.

№6. Pinterest

Pinterest is a social media like Instagram. But this is really about images and not text. It helps users find photos (visuals) they need to inspire or match their interests. For example, if a user keeps a pin about the fastest cars, you will get a series of photos with fast cars if you follow or subscribe to him.

Django is popular with social media platforms because it helps handle massive amounts of data and process thousands of user interactions per second. Pinterest has more than 250 million monthly active users. The platform should provide effective performance and scale while maintaining this performance efficiently. With Django, Pinterest can handle this by allowing users to follow each other and share boards and pins.

Quora is a US-based website. On this portal, users can ask various questions that other users can answer. The more you answer the questions, the higher your rating on the website. So, if you are a person who is looking for answers, the easiest way to get them is to ask questions on this website.

№8. NASA website

NASA has many illustrations, photos, and information. If the platform wants to work steadily, it chooses the proper framework. Since NASA relies on the Django framework, it must be stable and proven!

№9. Spotify 

Spotify is an app that lets you find, listen to, and share music with your friends for free. The application has an ergonomic design that lets you find relevant music content and quickly add it to your playlist.

Like iTunes, Spotify has changed how people listen to, share, and buy music. With Spotify, you can access your music library anywhere and on any device. 

The developers chose Django for two reasons:

• Fast back-end
• Machine learning options.

Django allowed them to use all the Python features and get the most out of them.

However, Spotify uses a combination of Java, Python, and C++, with less of the latter than ever before.

№10. Udemy 

Udemy is another excellent example of Django development. Udemy is a platform for those who want to know more. It's more like an online library with courses. It allows experts to earn from their experience and knowledge. And those who want to become an expert get some valuable skills. The developers have used Django to create a platform for all lessons, information, tests, etc.

№11. Disqus 

Disqus is one of the most significant projects ever done with Django. It allows you to implement comments and discussion options on your website, analyze visitor activity and customize ad placement.

Using this framework, the team could quickly create a website and expand it to millions of new users. The Disqus team now uses other frameworks, but Django remains the top choice thanks to its ever-growing community and many out-of-the-box options. The Disqus development team also used Django to build Sentry, an internal tool for tracking bugs, debugging, and fixing application crashes.

№12. The Washington Post

As mentioned earlier, Django originally appeared to support a content application for Lawrence Journal-World. Today, The Washington Post , The Guardian, The New York Times, and other newspaper websites using Django are highly scalable. It can handle the large amounts of data generated by their daily audiences.

№13. BitBucket 

Since its launch in 2008, this cloud-based Git repository has attracted millions of developers. With 17 million requests and 6 million repositories per year, this is one of the most used Django-based web applications.

The BitBucket team chose it for several reasons. The first reason is thousands of developers in their community. The second reason we mentioned earlier is the range of out-of-the-box Django solutions.

№14. Eventbrite 

Another Django website is Eventbrite , a ticket and event management platform. Originally developed with Python and native frameworks, it later switched to Django to handle the platform's rapid visitor numbers and interaction growth. Thanks to Django's scalability, Eventbrite can adapt to any audience size and constantly provide users with new updates.

№15. Mozilla 

One of the most popular browsers, Mozilla , has to handle hundreds of millions of requests every month. Given the number of requests that come in through the API, it's easy to understand why the team decided to switch from PHP + CakePHP to Python + Django. They now power the Mozilla support website and all add-ons for their browser.

Conclusion 

If you have a project thought, it only takes a few minutes to transfer it into the programming language and give it a concrete form with Django. The fact that Django is freely available makes it possible to significantly simplify the web development process, as the developer can focus on the design process and the development of the application's functionality. Django is, therefore, the perfect tool for startups, where web designers need to reflect the company's vision and goals.

Still feel that Django is not suitable for you? Check out 9 Amazing Examples Of React Web Development .

If you are considering a project with a deadline, using Django to solve the task at hand is a wise decision.

It is possible to set a custom configuration to speed up the workflow. In the past, when code development took a lot of time, this option greatly simplified this process.

So, contact us if you feel it's worth developing your following digital product in Django. We've got Django developers and other web devs in our Talent Network.

Ideamotive ensures we match you with talent that perfectly fits your industry and company culture.

Dawid is a full stack developer experienced in creating Ruby on Rails and React Native apps from naught to implementation. Technological superhero, delivering amazing solutions for our clients and helping them grow.

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Django Topics

Django websites.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Setting up django, understanding django project structure, creating a django app, building views, url mapping, tips and tricks, common errors and how to avoid them.

• Before diving into creating websites with Django, we need to set up Django in our system. We first install Python, then Django itself:
• Once Django is installed, we can start a new Django project:
• A Django project generated by the startproject command will have the following structure:
• manage.py: This is a command-line utility that lets us interact with our project in various ways. It's somewhat similar to the django-admin command.
• settings.py: This is the settings/configuration file for our project. It contains all the configurations required for our project.
• urls.py: This file is responsible for mapping the routes and paths in our project.
• A Django project consists of one or more applications (or apps). To create a new app, navigate to the main project directory (the one containing manage.py) and execute the following command:
• Views are one of the major components in Django. They are responsible for executing the business logic and returning a response to the user. A simple view in Django can look like this:
• Once we've defined our view, we need to connect it to a URL. Django uses URLconf, which is a set of patterns that Django will try to match the requested URL to find the correct view. A simple URL mapping in Django can look like this:
• Keep your code DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). Django is designed with this principle in mind. With Django, you can reuse parts of your code by using apps, middleware, and context processors.
• Always keep your secret key secret. Django automatically generates a secret key for your project. This should never be exposed to anyone.
• Use Django's built-in features. Django comes with a lot of built-in features like authentication, forms, admin interface, ORM, etc. Make use of them instead of reinventing the wheel.
• One of the most common errors in Django is the "Page not found (404)" error. This usually happens when the requested URL does not match any URL patterns. Always make sure to check your URL patterns and the requested URL.
• Another common error is the "TemplateDoesNotExist" error. This occurs when Django is unable to load the template file. To avoid this error, always make sure your templates are in the correct location and their paths are correctly specified.

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Django introduction

• Overview: Django

In this first Django article, we answer the question "What is Django?" and give you an overview of what makes this web framework special.

We'll outline the main features, including some of the advanced functionality that we won't have time to cover in detail in this module. We'll also show you some of the main building blocks of a Django application (although at this point you won't yet have a development environment in which to test it).

What is Django?

Django is a high-level Python web framework that enables rapid development of secure and maintainable websites. Built by experienced developers, Django 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 helps you write software that is:

Django follows the "Batteries included" philosophy and provides almost everything developers might want to do "out of the box". Because everything you need is part of the one "product", it all works seamlessly together, follows consistent design principles, and has extensive and up-to-date documentation .

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, and XML).

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.

Django helps developers avoid many common security mistakes by providing a framework that has been engineered to "do the right things" to protect the website automatically. For example, Django provides a secure way to manage user accounts and passwords, avoiding common mistakes like putting session information in cookies where it is vulnerable (instead cookies just contain a key, and the actual data is stored in the database) or directly storing passwords rather than a password hash.

A password hash is a fixed-length value created by sending the password through a cryptographic hash function . Django can check if an entered password is correct by running it through the hash function and comparing the output to the stored hash value. However due to the "one-way" nature of the function, even if a stored hash value is compromised it is hard for an attacker to work out the original password.

Django enables protection against many vulnerabilities by default, including SQL injection, cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery and clickjacking (see Website security for more details of such attacks).

Django uses a component-based " shared-nothing " 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).

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 (along the lines of the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern).

Django is written in Python, which runs on many platforms. That means that you are not tied to any particular server platform, and can run your applications on many flavors of Linux, Windows, and macOS. Furthermore, Django is well-supported by many web hosting providers, who often provide specific infrastructure and documentation for hosting Django sites.

Where did it come from?

Django was initially developed between 2003 and 2005 by a web team who were responsible for creating and maintaining newspaper websites. After creating a number of sites, the team began to factor out and reuse lots of common code and design patterns. This common code evolved into a generic web development framework, which was open-sourced as the "Django" project in July 2005.

Django has continued to grow and improve, from its first milestone release (1.0) in September 2008 through to the version 5.0 in late 2023. Each release has added new functionality and bug fixes, ranging from support for new types of databases, template engines, and caching, through to the addition of "generic" view functions and classes (which reduce the amount of code that developers have to write for a number of programming tasks).

Note: Check out the release notes on the Django website to see what has changed in recent versions, and how much work is going into making Django better.

Django is now a thriving, collaborative open source project, with many thousands of users and contributors. While it does still have some features that reflect its origin, Django has evolved into a versatile framework that is capable of developing any type of website.

How popular is Django?

There isn't any readily-available and definitive measurement of popularity of server-side frameworks (although you can estimate popularity using mechanisms like counting the number of GitHub projects and StackOverflow questions for each platform). A better question is whether Django is "popular enough" to avoid the problems of unpopular platforms. Is it continuing to evolve? Can you get help if you need it? Is there an opportunity for you to get paid work if you learn Django?

Based on the number of high profile sites that use Django, the number of people contributing to the codebase, and the number of people providing both free and paid for support, then yes, Django is a popular framework!

High-profile sites that use Django include: Disqus, Instagram, Knight Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla, National Geographic, Open Knowledge Foundation, Pinterest, and Open Stack (source: Django overview page ).

Is Django opinionated?

Web frameworks often refer to themselves as "opinionated" or "unopinionated".

Opinionated frameworks are those with opinions about the "right way" to handle any particular task. They often support rapid development in a particular domain (solving problems of a particular type) because the right way to do anything is usually well-understood and well-documented. However they can be less flexible at solving problems outside their main domain, and tend to offer fewer choices for what components and approaches they can use.

Unopinionated frameworks, by contrast, have far fewer restrictions on the best way to glue components together to achieve a goal, or even what components should be used. They make it easier for developers to use the most suitable tools to complete a particular task, albeit at the cost that you need to find those components yourself.

Django is "somewhat opinionated", and hence delivers the "best of both worlds". It provides a set of components to handle most web development tasks and one (or two) preferred ways to use them. However, Django's decoupled architecture means that you can usually pick and choose from a number of different options, or add support for completely new ones if desired.

What does Django code look like?

In a traditional data-driven website, a web application waits for HTTP requests from the web browser (or other client). When a request is received the application works out what is needed based on the URL and possibly information in POST data or GET data. Depending on what is required it may then read or write information from a database or perform other tasks required to satisfy the request. The application will then return a response to the web browser, often dynamically creating an HTML page for the browser to display by inserting the retrieved data into placeholders in an HTML template.

Django web applications typically group the code that handles each of these steps into separate files:

• URLs: While it is possible to process requests from every single URL via a single function, it is much more maintainable to write a separate view function to handle each resource. A URL mapper is used to redirect HTTP requests to the appropriate view based on the request URL. The URL mapper can also match particular patterns of strings or digits that appear in a URL and pass these to a view function as data.
• View: A view is a request handler function, which receives HTTP requests and returns HTTP responses. Views access the data needed to satisfy requests via models , and delegate the formatting of the response to templates .
• Models: Models are Python objects that define the structure of an application's data, and provide mechanisms to manage (add, modify, delete) and query records in the database.
• Templates: A template is a text file defining the structure or layout of a file (such as an HTML page), with placeholders used to represent actual content. A view can dynamically create an HTML page using an HTML template, populating it with data from a model . A template can be used to define the structure of any type of file; it doesn't have to be HTML!

Note: Django refers to this organization as the "Model View Template (MVT)" architecture. It has many similarities to the more familiar Model View Controller architecture.

The sections below will give you an idea of what these main parts of a Django app look like (we'll go into more detail later on in the course, once we've set up a development environment).

Sending the request to the right view (urls.py)

A URL mapper is typically stored in a file named urls.py . In the example below, the mapper ( urlpatterns ) defines a list of mappings between routes (specific URL patterns) and corresponding view functions. If an HTTP Request is received that has a URL matching a specified pattern, then the associated view function will be called and passed the request.

The urlpatterns object is a list of path() and/or re_path() functions (Python lists are defined using square brackets, where items are separated by commas and may have an optional trailing comma . For example: [item1, item2, item3,] ).

The first argument to both methods is a route (pattern) that will be matched. The path() method uses angle brackets to define parts of a URL that will be captured and passed through to the view function as named arguments. The re_path() function uses a flexible pattern matching approach known as a regular expression. We'll talk about these in a later article!

The second argument is another function that will be called when the pattern is matched. The notation views.book_detail indicates that the function is called book_detail() and can be found in a module called views (i.e. inside a file named views.py )

Handling the request (views.py)

Views are the heart of the web application, receiving HTTP requests from web clients and returning HTTP responses. In between, they marshal the other resources of the framework to access databases, render templates, etc.

The example below shows a minimal view function index() , which could have been called by our URL mapper in the previous section. Like all view functions it receives an HttpRequest object as a parameter ( request ) and returns an HttpResponse object. In this case we don't do anything with the request, and our response returns a hard-coded string. We'll show you a request that does something more interesting in a later section.

Note: A little bit of Python:

• Python modules are "libraries" of functions, stored in separate files, that we might want to use in our code. Here we import just the HttpResponse object from the django.http module so that we can use it in our view: from django.http import HttpResponse . There are other ways of importing some or all objects from a module.
• Functions are declared using the def keyword as shown above, with named parameters listed in parentheses after the name of the function; the whole line ends in a colon. Note how the next lines are all indented . The indentation is important, as it specifies that the lines of code are inside that particular block (mandatory indentation is a key feature of Python, and is one reason that Python code is so easy to read).

Views are usually stored in a file called views.py .

Defining data models (models.py)

Django web applications manage and query data through Python objects referred to as models. Models define the structure of stored data, including the field types and possibly also their maximum size, default values, selection list options, help text for documentation, label text for forms, etc. The definition of the model is independent of the underlying database — you can choose one of several as part of your project settings. Once you've chosen what database you want to use, you don't need to talk to it directly at all — you just write your model structure and other code, and Django handles all the "dirty work" of communicating with the database for you.

The code snippet below shows a very simple Django model for a Team object. The Team class is derived from the Django class models.Model . It defines the team name and team level as character fields and specifies a maximum number of characters to be stored for each record. The team_level can be one of several values, so we define it as a choice field and provide a mapping between choices to be displayed and data to be stored, along with a default value.

Python supports "object-oriented programming", a style of programming where we organize our code into objects, which include related data and functions for operating on that data. Objects can also inherit/extend/derive from other objects, allowing common behavior between related objects to be shared. In Python we use the keyword class to define the "blueprint" for an object. We can create multiple specific instances of the type of object based on the model in the class.

So for example, here we have a Team class, which derives from the Model class. This means it is a model, and will contain all the methods of a model, but we can also give it specialized features of its own too. In our model we define the fields our database will need to store our data, giving them specific names. Django uses these definitions, including the field names, to create the underlying database.

Querying data (views.py)

The Django model provides a simple query API for searching the associated database. This can match against a number of fields at a time using different criteria (e.g. exact, case-insensitive, greater than, etc.), and can support complex statements (for example, you can specify a search on U11 teams that have a team name that starts with "Fr" or ends with "al").

The code snippet shows a view function (resource handler) for displaying all of our U09 teams. The list_teams = Team.objects.filter(team_level__exact="U09") line shows how we can use the model query API to filter for all records where the team_level field has exactly the text ' U09 ' (note how this criteria is passed to the filter() function as an argument, with the field name and match type separated by a double underscore: team_level__exact ).

This function uses the render() function to create the HttpResponse that is sent back to the browser. This function is a shortcut ; it creates an HTML file by combining a specified HTML template and some data to insert in the template (provided in the variable named " context "). In the next section we show how the template has the data inserted in it to create the HTML.

Rendering data (HTML templates)

Template systems allow you to specify the structure of an output document, using placeholders for data that will be filled in when a page is generated. Templates are often used to create HTML, but can also create other types of document. Django supports both its native templating system and another popular Python library called Jinja2 out of the box (it can also be made to support other systems if needed).

The code snippet shows what the HTML template called by the render() function in the previous section might look like. This template has been written under the assumption that it will have access to a list variable called youngest_teams when it is rendered (this is contained in the context variable inside the render() function above). Inside the HTML skeleton we have an expression that first checks if the youngest_teams variable exists, and then iterates it in a for loop. On each iteration the template displays each team's team_name value in an <li> element.

What else can you do?

The preceding sections show the main features that you'll use in almost every web application: URL mapping, views, models and templates. Just a few of the other things provided by Django include:

• Forms : HTML Forms are used to collect user data for processing on the server. Django simplifies form creation, validation, and processing.
• User authentication and permissions : Django includes a robust user authentication and permission system that has been built with security in mind.
• Caching : Creating content dynamically is much more computationally intensive (and slow) than serving static content. Django provides flexible caching so that you can store all or part of a rendered page so that it doesn't get re-rendered except when necessary.
• Administration site : The Django administration site is included by default when you create an app using the basic skeleton. It makes it trivially easy to provide an admin page for site administrators to create, edit, and view any data models in your site.
• Serializing data : Django makes it easy to serialize and serve your data as XML or JSON. This can be useful when creating a web service (a website that purely serves data to be consumed by other applications or sites, and doesn't display anything itself), or when creating a website in which the client-side code handles all the rendering of data.

Congratulations, you've completed the first step in your Django journey! You should now understand Django's main benefits, a little about its history, and roughly what each of the main parts of a Django app might look like. You should have also learned a few things about the Python programming language, including the syntax for lists, functions, and classes.

You've already seen some real Django code above, but unlike with client-side code, you need to set up a development environment to run it. That's our next step.

Getting Started with Django Tutorial

• By Will Vincent
• Last updated Mar 5, 2024

This free tutorial is designed for programmers new to the Django web framework, whether you are a beginner who wants to build web applications in Python for the first time or an experienced web developer looking for a complete overview of what Django offers.

In comparison to Flask , which adopts a microframework approach, Django is a "batteries-included" framework that includes by default most of what you need to build, test, and deploy powerful websites quickly. It has built-in solutions for user authentication (sign up, log in, log out), database connections and queries, logic, templates, security, and more. As the tagline says on the Django website , it is "The web framework for perfectionists with deadlines."

This tutorial focuses on Django itself. If you'd like to compare the two most popular Python web frameworks, please refer to the article on Flask vs Django .

Table of Contents

What is django.

• Why Use the Django Web Framework?

What are the Prerequisites for Django?

Django architecture, django project structure, frequently asked questions (faqs).

Django is a web framework written in the Python programming language that takes care of the difficult and routine parts of web development--authentication, database connection, CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations, URL routing, forms, security, etc.--so that developers can concentrate on what makes a website unique without needing to reinvent the wheel.

It was initially developed in the early 2000s at the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper in Lawrence, Kansas, and named after the famous jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. First open-sourced in July 2005, Django grew rapidly thanks to an active community, regular updates, and widespread adoption that makes it one of the most popular web frameworks used by companies including Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, DropBox, Octopus Energy, and more.

Django is run as a non-profit by the Django Software Foundation and features regular local meetups , an online forum , and constant updates every month with a major new release every eight months. In short, Django is a mature and stable technology that is also actively maintained and improved.

Why Use The Django Web Framework?

Django's "batteries-included" approach offers a wide range of features right out of the box, including:

• ORM (Object-Relational Mapper) : write Python rather than SQL to create and query database information
• Admin Interface : a visual way to interact with website content
• URL Routing : clean, elegant URL schemas that are easy to maintain and reason about
• Templating Engine : a simple syntax for adding variables and logic to create dynamic HTML
• Forms : a powerful form library that handles rendering forms in HTML and validating user-submitted data
• Authentication : a full-featured and secure authentication system for user accounts, groups, permissions, and cookie-based user sessions
• Internationalization : multilingual support plus locale-specific formatting of dates, time, numbers, and time zones
• Security : protection against SQL injection, cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, clickjacking, and remote code execution
• Documentation : world-class documentation that is extensive and actively maintained by the community
• Third Party Packages : thousands of supplemental packages available to provide further functionality (see DjangoPackages.org )
• Regular releases : bugfixes every month and a major new release every eight months
• Written in Python : an expressive language suitable for beginners and used in many areas of programming, including data science, AI/ML, scientific computing, web scraping, and more

But the best part of Django is the community, which is welcoming and supportive to developers of all backgrounds and experience levels. There are regular meetups in major cities, annual conferences, online communities, and a forum to help fellow developers.

The two major prerequisites are a basic understanding of the Python programming language and web development fundamentals. You should understand Python syntax, how to import and export modules, and be familiar with object-oriented concepts like classes and objects. The building blocks of web development also include knowledge of HTML, CSS, some JavaScript, and how databases/SQL work together.

You don't need to be an expert in Python or web development to start. The best way to learn is to have a project in mind and then learn as you go rather than trying to understand all these concepts abstractly without actually building something.

Django follows a variant of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture called the Model-View-Template (MVT) pattern that emphasizes separation of concerns:

• Models are the data structure layer that represents the database schema
• Views are the business logic layer that receives a web request and returns a web response
• Templates are the presentation layer that displays information to the user

All websites follow a client/server model where HTTP requests are sent from the web browser, processed by the website, and an HTTP request is returned. In Django, that sequence looks as follows:

• A user makes an HTTP Request, for example.com
• A URLs processes it and assigns the correct View
• The View combines a Template and data from a Model/Database to create an HTTP Response
• The HTTP Response is returned to the user

Under-the-hood things are slightly more complicated than that, but the general flow remains the same.

Django doesn't force you to build web applications in a particular way. Still, there is a default structure that applies to most websites: a single Project has multiple Apps, each containing discrete functionality.

Django ships with several built-in apps such as admin , auth , sessions , messages , staticfiles , and more containing its "batteries." If you were to create a new Newspaper website with articles, you might make an articles app with that functionality. If you added payments later on, that would reside in a separate payments app. This structure helps developers reason about the code and means that even large Django codebases are relatively similar in structure.

Django's ORM (Object-Relational Mapper) means developers can define data models in Python and query them via a dynamic API, but you can still write SQL if needed. For example, this model defines an Article table in a newspaper app that contains three fields: title , content , and pub_date .

The title field is a character field ( CharField ) with a maximum length of 100 characters; the content field is a text field ( TextField ) that can store any amount of text; and the pub_date field is a date-time field ( DateTimeField ) that stores a timestamp of when the article was published.

Django provides support for many different field types as well as field options such as null , blank , primary_key , and unique .

Once you've created your data models, Django provides a database-abstraction API to create, retrieve, update, and delete objects.

A clean and elegant URL schema is essential for any high-quality web application. Django encourages beautiful URL design by creating a Python module called a URLconf. Similar to a table of contents for your app, it features precise mapping between URL patterns and your views.

In this example, three views are imported for a home page, an article list page, and an article detail page. Then, we define three paths that can define thousands or even millions of different webpages of articles.

Views are the business logic layer that receives web requests and returns web responses. In Django, you can write your own function-based views , class-based views , or take advantage of class-based generic views to handle common use cases such as displaying a template, a list of items, or a detail view of a single item.

This snippet is all the code we need to use built-in views to display a template called home.html , list all articles in a template called article_list.html , and display a detail view of a single article in article_detail.html .

Django's templating engine strikes a balance between power and ease. A template is a text file, typically HTML, that contains variables replaced with values when the template is evaluated and built-in tags and filters that control the logic of the template.

For example, a simple template file that displays all articles in the database would look as follows:

And a template file to display a single article could look like this:

It is possible to swap templating engines to use Jijna if you prefer and it is easy to sprinkle in HTMX as needed.

If you want to jump in and try Django for yourself, here are several free projects demonstrating how to build web applications with Django.

• Django Hello, World
• Django Blog Tutorial
• Django User Authentication
• Official Django REST Framework Tutorial - A Beginners Guide
• Django Stripe Tutorial

If you'd like to become proficient in Django, premium courses cover multiple projects in far richer depth and provide a progressive introduction to Django concepts.

• Django For Beginners
• Django for APIs
• Django for Professionals

Is Django easy to learn?

If you have a basic understanding of Python and web development concepts, yes. Django is written in Python and comes with many batteries included to make it fast to start and deploy websites quickly. As with all web frameworks, you will need some understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and databases to maximize its features.

What are the differences between Flask and Django?

Flask and Django are Python-based web frameworks but adopt very different approaches. Flask is a lightweight and flexible micro-framework, whereas Django is "batteries-included" and provides an extensive feature set by default. Flask is ideal for projects requiring maximum flexibility, while Django shines for traditional websites that value structure, excellent documentation, and a vibrant ecosystem.

Is Django for the backend or frontend?

Django is primarily used for backend web development: connecting to a database, adding logic, user authentication, creating APIs, URL routing, etc. It has a lightweight templating language for frontend use, but Django can also function as a backend API coupled with a frontend JavaScript framework like React, Vue, or Angular.

What is Django vs. Python?

Python is a general-purpose computer programming language that emphasizes the readability of code, making it popular for both beginners and experienced programmers. It is used in data science, artificial intelligence, automation, and web development. Django is a web framework written in Python that handles common challenges in web development--connecting to a database, authentication, forms, security, URL routing, etc.--so developers don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Is Django a programming language?

No, Django is a web framework for creating applications or APIs written in the Python programming language. There are many common challenges in web development--connecting to a database, user authentication, URL routing, forms, security--and a framework like Django handles them all so a developer can focus on writing code specific to the project rather than reinventing the wheel.

Is Django full-stack or not?

Yes, Django provides all the backend and frontend web development tools, including database connections, URL routing, forms, and templates. It is generally considered a backend framework because developers can also swap in a dedicated JavaScript frontend library like Vue or React.

Should I learn Django before Python?

You should start with Python since Django is a Python-based web framework. Everything in Django is just Python. You don't need to master Python before attempting Django, but understanding basic syntax, variables, dictionaries, and object-oriented techniques like classes is recommended.

How do I ask a good programming question?

Many beginners need help moving past following a tutorial or course to building their own projects. Whatever functionality you can imagine has already been implemented by others. The trick is finding an example online or asking a good question on a place like the Django Forum . If you need help, try to be as specific as possible and make clear you have put in effort already. So, instead of saying, please help me build a blog!, you could say, I've already implemented authentication and models, but I'm stuck on a view displaying all posts, and here is the code I'm trying to use that I know is incorrect. A more experienced developer can quickly look at the code and make suggestions.

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Django Overview

Django was invented to meet fast-moving newsroom deadlines , while satisfying the tough requirements of experienced web developers .

Why Django?

With Django, you can take web applications from concept to launch in a matter of hours. Django 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’s free and open source.

Django was designed to help developers take applications from concept to completion as quickly as possible.

Django includes dozens of extras you can use to handle common web development tasks. Django takes care of user authentication, content administration, site maps, RSS feeds, and many more tasks — right out of the box.

Django takes security seriously and helps developers avoid many common security mistakes, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery and clickjacking. Its user authentication system provides a secure way to manage user accounts and passwords.

Some of the busiest sites on the planet use Django’s ability to quickly and flexibly scale to meet the heaviest traffic demands.

Companies, organizations and governments have used Django to build all sorts of things — from content management systems to social networks to scientific computing platforms.

Sites Using Django

• Knight Foundation
• MacArthur Foundation
• National Geographic
• Open Knowledge Foundation

Django Links

• About Django
• Getting Started with Django
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• Django Software Foundation
• Code of Conduct
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© 2005-2024 Django Software Foundation and individual contributors. Django is a registered trademark of the Django Software Foundation.

Django Tutorial

Display data, django syntax, static files, deploy django, more django, django references, django exercises.

Django is a back-end server side web framework.

Django is free, open source and written in Python.

Django makes it easier to build web pages using Python.

Learning by Doing

In this tutorial you get a step by step guide on how to install and create a Django project. You will learn how to create a project where you can add, read, update or delete data.

You will learn how to make HTML Templates and use Django Template Tags to insert data within a HTML document.

You will learn how to work with QuerySets to extract, filter, and sort data from the database.

You will also learn how to set up a PostgreSQL database and how to deploy your Django project to the world.

Test Yourself With Exercises

Insert the missing parts to write a Django variable in a template:

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Django Quiz

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Learning by Examples

In the tutorial we will use examples to better explain the various concepts.

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Writing your first Django app, part 1 ¶

Let’s learn by example.

Throughout this tutorial, we’ll walk you through the creation of a basic poll application.

It’ll consist of two parts:

• A public site that lets people view polls and vote in them.
• An admin site that lets you add, change, and delete polls.

We’ll assume you have Django installed already. You can tell Django is installed and which version by running the following command in a shell prompt (indicated by the $ prefix):

If Django is installed, you should see the version of your installation. If it isn’t, you’ll get an error telling “No module named django”.

This tutorial is written for Django 5.0, which supports Python 3.10 and later. If the Django version doesn’t match, you can refer to the tutorial for your version of Django by using the version switcher at the bottom right corner of this page, or update Django to the newest version. If you’re using an older version of Python, check What Python version can I use with Django? to find a compatible version of Django.

See How to install Django for advice on how to remove older versions of Django and install a newer one.

Where to get help:

If you’re having trouble going through this tutorial, please head over to the Getting Help section of the FAQ.

Creating a project ¶

If this is your first time using Django, you’ll have to take care of some initial setup. Namely, you’ll need to auto-generate some code that establishes a Django project – a collection of settings for an instance of Django, including database configuration, Django-specific options and application-specific settings.

From the command line, cd into a directory where you’d like to store your code, then run the following command:

This will create a mysite directory in your current directory. If it didn’t work, see Problems running django-admin .

You’ll need to avoid naming projects after built-in Python or Django components. In particular, this means you should avoid using names like django (which will conflict with Django itself) or test (which conflicts with a built-in Python package).

Where should this code live?

If your background is in plain old PHP (with no use of modern frameworks), you’re probably used to putting code under the web server’s document root (in a place such as /var/www ). With Django, you don’t do that. It’s not a good idea to put any of this Python code within your web server’s document root, because it risks the possibility that people may be able to view your code over the web. That’s not good for security.

Put your code in some directory outside of the document root, such as /home/mycode .

Let’s look at what startproject created:

These files are:

• The outer mysite/ root directory is a container for your project. Its name doesn’t matter to Django; you can rename it to anything you like.
• manage.py : A command-line utility that lets you interact with this Django project in various ways. You can read all the details about manage.py in django-admin and manage.py .
• The inner mysite/ directory is the actual Python package for your project. Its name is the Python package name you’ll need to use to import anything inside it (e.g. mysite.urls ).
• mysite/__init__.py : An empty file that tells Python that this directory should be considered a Python package. If you’re a Python beginner, read more about packages in the official Python docs.
• mysite/settings.py : Settings/configuration for this Django project. Django settings will tell you all about how settings work.
• mysite/urls.py : The URL declarations for this Django project; a “table of contents” of your Django-powered site. You can read more about URLs in URL dispatcher .
• mysite/asgi.py : An entry-point for ASGI-compatible web servers to serve your project. See How to deploy with ASGI for more details.
• mysite/wsgi.py : An entry-point for WSGI-compatible web servers to serve your project. See How to deploy with WSGI for more details.

The development server ¶

Let’s verify your Django project works. Change into the outer mysite directory, if you haven’t already, and run the following commands:

You’ll see the following output on the command line:

Ignore the warning about unapplied database migrations for now; we’ll deal with the database shortly.

You’ve started the Django development server, a lightweight web server written purely in Python. We’ve included this with Django so you can develop things rapidly, without having to deal with configuring a production server – such as Apache – until you’re ready for production.

Now’s a good time to note: don’t use this server in anything resembling a production environment. It’s intended only for use while developing. (We’re in the business of making web frameworks, not web servers.)

Now that the server’s running, visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/ with your web browser. You’ll see a “Congratulations!” page, with a rocket taking off. It worked!

Changing the port

By default, the runserver command starts the development server on the internal IP at port 8000.

If you want to change the server’s port, pass it as a command-line argument. For instance, this command starts the server on port 8080:

If you want to change the server’s IP, pass it along with the port. For example, to listen on all available public IPs (which is useful if you are running Vagrant or want to show off your work on other computers on the network), use:

Full docs for the development server can be found in the runserver reference.

Automatic reloading of runserver

The development server automatically reloads Python code for each request as needed. You don’t need to restart the server for code changes to take effect. However, some actions like adding files don’t trigger a restart, so you’ll have to restart the server in these cases.

Creating the Polls app ¶

Now that your environment – a “project” – is set up, you’re set to start doing work.

Each application you write in Django consists of a Python package that follows a certain convention. Django comes with a utility that automatically generates the basic directory structure of an app, so you can focus on writing code rather than creating directories.

Projects vs. apps

What’s the difference between a project and an app? An app is a web application that does something – e.g., a blog system, a database of public records or a small poll app. A project is a collection of configuration and apps for a particular website. A project can contain multiple apps. An app can be in multiple projects.

Your apps can live anywhere on your Python path . In this tutorial, we’ll create our poll app in the same directory as your manage.py file so that it can be imported as its own top-level module, rather than a submodule of mysite .

To create your app, make sure you’re in the same directory as manage.py and type this command:

That’ll create a directory polls , which is laid out like this:

This directory structure will house the poll application.

Write your first view ¶

Let’s write the first view. Open the file polls/views.py and put the following Python code in it:

This is the simplest view possible in Django. To call the view, we need to map it to a URL - and for this we need a URLconf.

To create a URLconf in the polls directory, create a file called urls.py . Your app directory should now look like:

In the polls/urls.py file include the following code:

The next step is to point the root URLconf at the polls.urls module. In mysite/urls.py , add an import for django.urls.include and insert an include() in the urlpatterns list, so you have:

The include() function allows referencing other URLconfs. Whenever Django encounters include() , it chops off whatever part of the URL matched up to that point and sends the remaining string to the included URLconf for further processing.

The idea behind include() is to make it easy to plug-and-play URLs. Since polls are in their own URLconf ( polls/urls.py ), they can be placed under “/polls/”, or under “/fun_polls/”, or under “/content/polls/”, or any other path root, and the app will still work.

When to use include()

You should always use include() when you include other URL patterns. admin.site.urls is the only exception to this.

You have now wired an index view into the URLconf. Verify it’s working with the following command:

Go to http://localhost:8000/polls/ in your browser, and you should see the text “ Hello, world. You’re at the polls index. ”, which you defined in the index view.

Page not found?

If you get an error page here, check that you’re going to http://localhost:8000/polls/ and not http://localhost:8000/ .

The path() function is passed four arguments, two required: route and view , and two optional: kwargs , and name . At this point, it’s worth reviewing what these arguments are for.

path() argument: route ¶

route is a string that contains a URL pattern. When processing a request, Django starts at the first pattern in urlpatterns and makes its way down the list, comparing the requested URL against each pattern until it finds one that matches.

Patterns don’t search GET and POST parameters, or the domain name. For example, in a request to https://www.example.com/myapp/ , the URLconf will look for myapp/ . In a request to https://www.example.com/myapp/?page=3 , the URLconf will also look for myapp/ .

path() argument: view ¶

When Django finds a matching pattern, it calls the specified view function with an HttpRequest object as the first argument and any “captured” values from the route as keyword arguments. We’ll give an example of this in a bit.

path() argument: kwargs ¶

Arbitrary keyword arguments can be passed in a dictionary to the target view. We aren’t going to use this feature of Django in the tutorial.

path() argument: name ¶

Naming your URL lets you refer to it unambiguously from elsewhere in Django, especially from within templates. This powerful feature allows you to make global changes to the URL patterns of your project while only touching a single file.

When you’re comfortable with the basic request and response flow, read part 2 of this tutorial to start working with the database.

Additional Information

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• Creating a project
• The development server
• Creating the Polls app
• path() argument: route
• path() argument: view
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Django Learning Resources

Are you new to Django development? Are you already familiar with it and want to expand your knowledge? PyCharm has Django learning resources for everyone. 

In this article, you’ll find a compilation of all the Django-related resources created by the experts at PyCharm to help you navigate through them all. From creating a new Django Python project in PyCharm to using different APIs and Frameworks, you’ll find a wealth of valuable information here. 

Let’s start with the PyCharm guide first.  

PyCharm Guide:

We have an in-depth tutorial on the PyCharm Guide named, ‘Developing Django Application using AWS,’ that starts from the basics of Django to helping you create your very first Django application.

Here’s a breakdown of the tutorial:

1. Introduction

In this chapter, you’ll be introduced to Django – what it is, when, and how it was created. You will also learn about other popular Python frameworks like FastAPI, Pyramid, and Flask.

2. Creating a new Django Project in PyCharm

Here you will learn how to create a new Django project in PyCharm. This chapter comes with a detailed step-by-step guide in both video and image formats so you can easily follow the instructions to create a Django project!

3 . Setup AWS RDS in PyCharm  

In this chapter, we’ll walk you through the process of connecting Postgres with a Django application using PyCharm. This tutorial comes in video or image-supported text formats. 

4. Developing Django Applications using AWS

In this guide, we’ll explore the process of developing a Python Django application using AWS in PyCharm. You’ll find all of the resources developed by PyCharm in this guide, from an introduction to creating Django applications using AWS to how to properly test them.

5. Implementing Rest APIs

In this Django tutorial, we’ll explore the powerful combination of Django and DRF, enabling you to create robust and scalable APIs effortlessly. From setting up your development environment to implementing endpoints and handling authentication, you’ll learn it all. 

6. Secure REST APIs with JWT  

In this chapter, we’ll explore how to enhance the security of your Django REST APIs using JSON Web Tokens (JWT). 

7. Unit Tests in Django  

From installing a package to executing a test, you’ll learn all about how to create your first test in Django. You’ll find a detailed video tutorial as well as a step-by-step breakdown with images to help you easily follow the Django tutorial. 

8. Exploring Django with Docker

Discover how to leverage Docker’s flexibility and Django’s robust features to build scalable and portable web applications in PyCharm. There is a video tutorial as well as a detailed breakdown of instructions. 

Other tutorials in our PyCharm guide include:

1. Autocomplete Django Settings Strings  

This short video demonstrates PyCharm’s autocomplete capabilities for Django Python code.

2. Creating CRUD APIs (TODO App)

In this tutorial, we’ll explore the process of building robust CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) APIs using Django Rest Framework. From initializing to debugging your API, you’ll learn it all. 

3. Build Django Apps on Google Cloud With PyCharm and Cloud Code

In this tutorial, you will discover how to leverage PyCharm and Google Cloud’s Cloud Code extension to streamline your development workflow and deploy your Django apps with ease. 

PyCharm YouTube: 

1. Django Support in PyCharm with Ilya and Alexei

In this video, you’ll get to know why PyCharm is the ideal IDE for Django development and how you can benefit from it. Learn all about Django support in PyCharm, including code insight, navigation between views and models, built-in manage.py utility, from the PyCharm team itself!

2. Writing REST With Django and Ninja

In this Django tutorial, we’ll explore the powerful combination of Django and Ninja frameworks for building RESTful APIs. Discover how these tools can simplify your development process and enhance the functionality of your applications.

3. Database Performance Tips with Django

In this tutorial, we’ll explore database performance tips with Django with Andrew Brookins. Learn how to optimize queries, leverage caching techniques, fine-tune database settings, and more.

4. Django-in-PyCharm Tips: Reloaded

Here we provide you with more valuable tips to maximize your productivity and efficiency while working with Django in PyCharm. From configuring the Django project settings to utilizing powerful PyCharm features to make Django development a breeze, we’ve got you covered.

5. Faster Django Coding with Live Templates

In this quick tutorial, you’ll find out how to write code fast by using live templates and skipping boilerplate code. This way you can increase your productivity, reduce errors, and stay consistent.

6. Django Templates in 3 Minutes: A Quick Guide to Template Creation

Learn how to create a Django template in PyCharm with this quick and easy to follow tutorial.

7. Django-in-PyCharm Tips: Reloaded

Looking for a single place where you can find all the tips for Django in PyCharm? This is it! Learn from the best about what PyCharm can do for you when it comes to Django development and code like a pro in no time.

PyCharm Blog:

1. How To Learn Django: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners

Are you struggling to learn Django? Or maybe you want to add Django to your technology stack but don’t know where to start. This blog dives into all the details on how to learn Django, from the prerequisites to helpful resources, you’l find everything you need here.

2. What is the Django Web Framework?

This is another great introductory article if you’re just starting out in Django. This blog post takes you to the very basics of what is Django, its origin, features, and anything else you would possibly want to know in order to get familiar with Django.

3. Create a Django App in PyCharm

In this detailed Django tutorial, you’ll find out everything you need to know before creating a Django app in PyCharm. From prerequisites to setup to building a sample application, you’ll learn all the basics including writing models and views, connecting to the database, and making API calls.

4. How to use Materialized Views in Django  

In this Django tutorial, you’ll learn how to create, recreate, and query Materialized Views within your Django application, enabling you to optimize performance and streamline your data processing workflows. 

5. Building APIs With Django REST Framework

In this Django REST framework tutorial, you will learn how to create a rental platform API. The tutorial demonstrates how to use Python and Django REST framework in PyCharm to develop APIs. By the time you’re done with the tutorial, you’ll be equipped with how to write and test your APIs.

6. How to Connect Django With MongoDB

If you’re someone who regularly uses databases with Django, then you know then connecting Django with MongoDB is not as simple as it looks. This in-depth article will guide you from the very beginning- From informing about the prerequisites to step-by-step tutorial complete with images, you’ll have all the tools in your arsenal to connect Django with MongoDB.

7. Django vs FastAPI: Which is the Best Python Web Framework?

This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of Django and FastAPI, two of the most popular Python web frameworks, to determine which is better suited for different project requirements. You’ll also find out how to install them, and how PyCharm supports each framework.

8. Django vs Flask: Which is the Best Python Web Framework?

Confused between Django and Flask? This blog give you an in-depth view of how each framework differs from each other in different aspect like architecture, learning curve, testing, databases, and so much more. After you’re done reading the articles, you’ll know the key differences between Django and Flask, as well as which one to choose for your next project.

So there you have it, all Django learning resources by PyCharm in one place. Check out our blog post, “How To Learn Django: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners” , for more actionable insights!

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