Django Web Development: Is Django good for websites?

If you’re a web developer or planning to use Python for web development, you will probably use Django as the preferred Python web framework. However, you may doubt whether Django is a good choice for developing websites.

Django is the most preferred Python web framework for developing small to large websites. Django is a good choice for developing websites because it offers out-of-the-box functionality, which makes developing and deploying sites easier.

Besides, Django is a perfect choice for developing websites because you can use it with other web development technologies such as frontend frameworks such as React and CSS frameworks such as Bootstrap.

In general, here are the reasons why Django is good for websites

Reasons why Django is good for small and large websites

Django allows scalability of a website

Django is a perfect choice for developing a website whose primary objectives and level of scalability have not yet been determined in the initial phases of web development. Sometimes, as a web developer or client, you may want to develop a website and later scale it to a level with more features and functionality suited for a large audience. If you were to select a web framework or technology that does not allow scalability, you would have difficulty implementing new features when scaling is required.

That’s why Django is a good choice for developing websites that are likely to scale in the future once it has been tested with their users. Django being the perfect choice for developing such websites; it allows web developers to start with a simple or small Django website and later scale it to a big website handling more than a million users or incorporating more features or functionality.

It is effortless to connect and use popular database systems with Django

Another reason why Django is a perfect choice for web development is its compatibility with the popular SQL database systems. Some of the database systems that Django officially supports include MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MariaDB, and SQLite.

To use these database systems in your Django websites, you must install database-specific connectors and API drivers in your Python virtual environments. Once you install the drivers, you only need to instruct Django to use the database through the connector.

If your websites require handling and storage of large amounts of data, you may consider using relational databases to achieve that. Fortunately, when you use Django as your website’s preferred web framework, setting and configuring SQL databases is very easy.

For more information on handling and storing data in your Django websites, I have written this article to help you understand Django models and ORM.

You may find more information about Django databases in Django Docs.

Setting up popular web servers such as NGINX and Gunicorn with Django is a straightforward process

Django works well with web servers such as NGINX and Gunicorn. For that reason, when you use Django to develop your websites, you know that you will not have compatibility or efficiency issues with web servers on your websites.

Remember, in a production environment, Django is an application server. Thus, you must take care of setting up the web server so that your website’s assets and access can be served. NGINX and Gunicorn are great web server choices for a Django website because they are capable of:

Django scalability and compatibility with web servers such as NGINX allow it to serve many users

A website must be able to withstand stress tests from a large number of simultaneous requests. Otherwise, most users accessing your website will receive server errors or lagging. Such an experience may reduce the experience scores of your website and sometimes lose Google search rankings.

Remember, Google search rankings and better user experience should be the main goal of developing professional websites.

Fortunately, when you develop websites with Django, you can use the fastest web servers, such as NGINX and Gunicorn. Therefore, Django websites served by NGINX are more likely to load faster when compared with Django websites served by other web servers.

For more information on deploying Django websites with NGINX and Gunicorn, follow this tutorial I have for you.

You can develop full-stack web applications with Django

You can develop a full-stack website with backend and frontend functionality with Python Django and HTML and CSS. You may use Django to develop the business logic of a web application using Django views and how to handle saving of data using Django models. That will be enough to develop the backend side of your website.

Besides, Django comes with a ready-made admin page that you can customize to your needs and looks. Django views, models, and admin functionalities will be enough for backend development.

On the other hand, Django supports HTML and CSS, and you can use these technologies to develop your website’s frontend pages. Besides, Django has an inbuilt Django Template Language (DTL) that allows you to retrieve and communicate with your Django application. Thus, you can use Python-like expressions in your Django frontend to interact with the web application.

You can configure and use other web development technologies with Django

Although Django, HTML, CSS, and some JavaScript may be enough for developing complete websites, you have the freedom, as a developer, to use other frontend technologies such as React.

Django can be used with React to separate the backend and frontend more. Having separate frontend and backend code makes development tasks such as debugging and testing websites built with Django and React easier and faster.

Besides, integrating Django with React allows web developers to manage their code better and improve Django website design.

Django allows rapid development, making website development faster

Django encourages rapid development, enabling you to build complex and database-driven smart websites quickly. When developing websites using a rapid development approach, you don’t compromise a web application’s security, efficiency, and performance in an attempt to achieve a functional product faster.

With rapid development, Django allows web developers to complete complex websites requiring short deadlines to be completed in time without compromise. As developers do not have to code everything from scratch, they can focus on writing the code that solves the project’s objectives. This approach reduces the time needed to develop a website, allowing such a requirement to be achieved ridiculously fast.

Websites developed with Django are easily maintainable

As Django encourages best code practices such as clean code design and principles such as the DRY principle, websites developed with the technology are very maintainable. Besides, Django comes with common features and functionalities needed in a website already implemented and tested. Therefore, developers do not need to write too much code that would become hard to maintain as the website scale.

You do not have to code common features and functionalities used in web development

While using Django to develop websites, you do not have to reinvent the wheel by coding common web features and functionalities such as security, performance, user sign-up, account creation, authentication, admin pages, e.t.c.

The reason why Django is a good choice for web development is that it saves programmers the time needed to code functionality that is generic on every website. Thus, Django allows web developers to focus on writing the business logic code without worrying about standard functionalities such as user authentication.

Conclusion

Django has been a popular Python web framework that has been used for backend development or full-stack website development. Web developers may use Django as a backend technology and connect it with other frontend frameworks, such as React, to handle web pages displayed to the users. On the other hand, developers also use Django, HTML, and CSS to develop simple to medium websites.

Web developers see Django as a good choice for developing websites because it provides too many features, functionalities, and freedom. Thus, developers can make professional websites faster without compromising website performance, security, or effectiveness.