Python developers have a big pool of frameworks to choose from for their web projects. However, Django, without a shred of doubt, has become the most popular web framework among Python developers world over. Through this blog, I am throwing light on why Python developers prefer Django to other popular Python web frameworks, such as Flask, Pyramid, Tornado, Bottle, Diesel, Pecan, Falcon, and many more.
Before jumping on to the virtues of Django, let’s understand in brief what a web framework is:
A web framework is a code library that makes it easier for developers to build dynamic websites, web applications and web services. It’s a known fact that every site has a common set of functionality (like handling sessions, data validation, etc) that you need to re-write each time you create a website. This makes the task mundane and tedious. However, using a web framework ends your plight of re-writing common set of functionalities each time you create a website, resulting in faster development. In a nutshell, web frameworks ease web development life.
Why Django is the Best Web Framework for Python Developers
Django is a high-level, MVC-style, open-source collection of libraries written in Python. Django, also called “the framework for perfectionists with deadlines," was originally designed for news sites as it allows developers to write database-driven web applications without having to start coding from scratch.
Besides faster completion of common web development tasks, Django helps keep the design clean and pragmatic. Django is the best place for new Python web developers as the official documentation and tutorials are some of the best in software development.
The tech market is flooded with a gamut of web frameworks, but Django sits nicely at the top when it comes to the most popular server-side web frameworks. The motto behind designing Django was simple: Don’t repeat yourself. Django is written in Python, therefore emphasizes efficiency improvement by minimizing the hassle of writing too much code. Cloud platform support makes Django even a more popular choice for web development.
Key Features of Django
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Django Comes with “Batteries-Included”
Image Courtesy: SlideShare
That Django is based on ”batteries-included” philosophy, you need not to use separate libraries to implement common functionalities, like authentication, URL routing, a templating system, an object-relational mapper (ORM), and database schema migrations. If you are using or have used Flask, you must have noticed that it calls for a separate library like Flask-Login to perform user authentication. Such is not the case with Django.
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Free API
With Django, it’s easy to generate a Python API based on your models. No additional coding required as a simple command is good enough to begin generating APIs.
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Unique Admin Interface
Image Courtesy: Django documentation
You can have information on your site from outside contributors even before the site is completely built. Such is the power of Django. The framework empowers you to quickly and easily generate an administration site straight from an application's models.
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Code Layout
In contrast to most web frameworks, Django makes it easier to plug new capabilities in your product by using things called applications. As a result, developers feel encouraged to write code that is self-contained.
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Django’s ORM Takes Care of Databases
Image Courtesy: Full Stack Python
Django’s Object Relational Mapper (ORM) takes care of databases. So, no hassles of dealing with the Structured Query Language (SQL), which is mostly used to query the database for the data needed. Unlike many other Python frameworks that directly work on the database via SQL, Django developers have a unique option to manipulate the corresponding Python model object. Django works out-of-the-box with relational database management systems like PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and Oracle.
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Robust Built-in Template System
Based on the inheritance system, Django’s templates allow developers to build entire, dynamic websites out of a very small amount of front-end code. Thanks to the option to replace certain elements of templates with other, context specific elements. Imagine a situation where you know that every page of your site is going to have a header and a footer. Now, you first need to write the code in the site’s base template. And then, you can alter the components between those two things dynamically, from other parts of the application.
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Simple, Readable URLs
It’s difficult to properly read URLs developed in PHP os ASP. With Django, you can create simple and easy-to-read URLs, which is good for both human beings and search engines. You can create readable URLs with other frameworks too, but none is as easy as Django is for URL construction.
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Enables Quick and Easy Creation of RSS and Atom feeds
With Django, you can quickly and easily create RSS and Atom feeds by creating a simple Python class.
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Automatically Creates Tables in Database
If there is a table missing in your database, you can automatically create it by executing the migrate command in Django.
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Easy Database Migrations
One of the most useful features of Django is database migrations. With Django’s migrations, you can change a database schema in quick time. It’s also easy to track your database schema and its associated changes. Migration names help in managing version control, and a plethora of options are available to merge versions and make modifications.
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Security
Django is highly secured. The framework comes with default protection against XSS attacks, CSRF attacks, SQL injections, clickjacking, user management, cookies, email header injection, cryptography, directory traversal etc.
Django has a very dynamic community, with 80,000 StackOverflow issues and numerous blogs from the developers and power users. Some popular websites that use Django are Bitbucket, Pinterest, Instagram, and The Onion. Django continues to soar in popularity and is likely to remain the most popular choice of Python developers.
If that sound's too technical and you want to get your Python project done from experts, Evon Technologies can help you. We are an offshore software consulting and development company in India with over a decade of experience in catering to various different culture clients and often exceeding their expectations. Offshore software development in India has become a very popular practice among clients in countries like the US, Europe, Canada, Australia and more for several benefits it offers over on-site development. You can hire our custom web design and development team or our custom mobile app development to build your product using Python and Django or a different programming language and framework to suit your project requirements the best. Get in touch with us to start a discussion with our experts.