This world will never get tired of talking about python, and nor do we. Python is like the Elon Musk of the technology world. Just like Elon is striding towards almost everything, you can also find python virtually connected to every latest technology. Be it web development, software development, artificial intelligence, machine learning, game development, scientific and numeric applications, and many others. Django Web Framework is going to be very important in the future. Point your finger towards any latest technology, and you will find python’s application somewhere in between.
Started as a hobby project from Guido Van Rossum around 1989’s Christmas. Nobody thought this scripting language would be scalable with so many applications in the future. Python is the definition of simplicity; it is easy to learn and to use and implement in various applications. Thanks to its computation capabilities, it is more than prevalent at the moment. In the last few blogs, we talked a lot about python. Today we thought of enlightening you with Django, one of the most used python based web development frameworks on the internet and one which Python Development Company loves to work with.
Frameworks are always an essential part of development; thanks to their collection of modules, they make development way a lot easier, so you do not have to perform anything from scratch. If you were wondering why app development has become a cup of tea for everyone, that’s because a single person can handle the complete development learning to control various tools. Thanks to frameworks like Django, almost everything has become a lot easier, especially mobile app development.
Let us start with understanding more about Django before finally we move towards the pros and cons of this web framework for comprehensive app development.
What is Django?
How about we start with the definition before highlighting its main features and some advanced functionalities Django has to offer.
“Django is a high-level Python-based web framework which is used for rapid and secure development of websites and mobile apps.” Like any other framework, it saves your time and other hassles through its extensive collection of modules that can be used to create your desired project, whether web or app development.
Fun-Fact: Do you know Django was first created for front-end developers conceptually. The main objective behind its development was to make developers and designers feel comfortable with HTML. But thanks to python’s highly scalable and flexible nature, it allowed developers to amplify the Django framework as a complete development solution.
When it comes to frameworks, then a question arises: how do you determine their popularity? Simply considering the mechanics, its engagement rate on Stack Overflow, and the number of GitHub projects running on Django gives us a satisfactory answer.
Considering these two aspects, we can announce that Django is popular among the developers and the Python development services. These aspects, plus the factors like the number of high profile websites like Instagram, Pinterest, Open Knowledge Foundation, National Geographic, OpenStack, etc., using Django justifies the same. Find out more about Instagram at Python here.
There are several developers over the internet that are contributing to the codebase constantly. You can also find many people providing both free and paid support to the Django framework. It suggests the python based web and app development framework is popular among the developers and companies that need to have better services. Django indeed has a bright future ahead.
Is Django Opinionated or Unopinionated?
If you are considering Django for mobile app development, you might wanna know whether Django is Opinionated or Unopinionated with its outcome. For those who have no idea what these two terms stand for, you do not have to worry because we will start with defining them to have an appropriate answer to our question.
Opinionated frameworks are those that perfectly handle a particular task. If you are looking for comprehensive development in one specific domain, dedicated opinionated frameworks offer quick and seamless development. It’s because it’s already understood and documented the complete process. But the concern arises when you have to solve problems from other fields, then it provides fewer choices of components and almost nix approach to finish the task.
Unopinionated frameworks, on the other hand, have fewer restrictions as compared to opinionated ones. The main goal behind developing such frameworks is to use variable components to efficiently complete the task from different domains. As you can already understand, unopinionated frameworks are much easier to create. It makes the availability for different components in one place, making the process seamless.
If we talk about Django, then we can say it is somewhat opinionated because it consists of elements that make it a wonderful family from both worlds. It offers a set of components to manage most web development tasks and offers one specific way to use them. Django’s decoupled architecture confirms that you can pick from several options and even add support from third parties, leaning more towards the unopinionated framework.
Assets and Liabilities of Django Web Framework
There are numerous developers globally who use the Django web framework, but it has its own pros and cons. Most of them love to use Django but understanding its ins and outs is crucial, especially for those confused between different frameworks for the development process.
Pros of Django Web Development
Many top developers from the python development company prefer Django over other frameworks. It has already pioneered itself in machine learning and artificial intelligence because of its all-inclusive statistical and computational capabilities. Some positives of the Django framework are listed below:
Batteries Include – Batteries included feature is the most substantial and considerable benefit of using Django as your primary framework. Although it has a different name, it doesn’t mean you haven’t heard about this feature before. It basically allows you to use readymade packages to add trending and advanced functionalities to your program. This not only saves enormous time but also allows developers to come up with trending applications that suit the customer’s needs.
Django is backed by many talented and world-class developers from all around the globe. With their constant efforts, we see added functionalities from time to time. Because of the batteries included in Django, you can import third-party packages like auth package, admin package, sessions package, and create apps on time.
Rest Framework for APIs – An application programming interface also known as API builds a connection between computer and computer programs. In no time, API became the internal and essential part of app development. Almost every framework offers that. Django provides the REST framework, which allows creating APIs for the project you are working on. You might be wondering what’s new with it? Yes, it’s true, but Django has a modular and configurable architecture specially designed to make API development rapid and more effortless.
The REST framework also comes with an integral browser that makes testing of API endpoints easy. The additional library offers customizations which usually you won’t see in other popular frameworks like Flask(Python-based development framework).
Machine Learning Capabilities – If your plan is to integrate machine learning capabilities within your web or app development, then without a doubt, Django should be your first priority. We know you are again thinking about Flask using machine learning models, but you need to consider that it is a lightweight model in front of Django. Django is advanced with its features and compatible with some of the most popular machine learning libraries that make the integration and development of machine learning models easier.
The top python development services constantly look to unfurl the Django web framework to make it more comprehensive with machine learning capabilities.
Open Source and Huge Community – We have seen in the past that having a supportive community really helps you grow. Whether it’s your fans or your family members, support from everyone around can do wonders. Even in the advanced technology field like web and app development, the community plays a crucial part. Python is still alive because of the extensive support it gets.
Similarly, Django has a vast community of developers behind it. If you stumble upon a problem during the development, then chances are high it’s already been solved by some other developer in the community. The community’s constant addition of new libraries to solve the latest coding-related issues for those working on Django is another reason it’s one of the best frameworks for app development.
Cross-Platform – It’s time for cross-platform mobile app development as more and more businesses are opting for the same. Django is a leading cross-platform framework that supports all development and production environments. It saves time, money and offers highly scalable mobile apps for both the major platforms(Android and iOS). It also consists of a layer known as ORM(Object Relational Mapper) between the developer and the database. It allows you to migrate your complete project to one database from another with just a few changes in the code. Impressive, isn’t it?
Scalable and Reliable Platform – Concern of having a scalable and reliable application is eating every startup and business’s minds. What if the website or the app hit the scale it needed to handle heavy traffic and a large volume of data? To make sure, you need a scalable and reliable framework that can easily take this amount of intelligence.
Django is already among the widely used web and app development frameworks across enterprises. Its capability of handling every size of projects, from development to deployment, makes it the best choice for scalable web and mobile applications. You might wanna how?
Django offers a series of integral wired components. These components can be decoupled as per your specific requirements as per the development. You can quickly scale up or scale down the process just by replacing these components.
Cons of Django Framework
Since we have already talked about the capabilities of the Django framework. Let us talk about why still it’s not a primary framework for many programmers. Here are some cons of the Django mobile app development framework.
Smaller Projects – Django is less suitable for smaller projects that only need a few features. It’s perfect for developments that require scaling and are going to launch at a large scale. It’s because it involves a lot of coding, server processing time, and bandwidth during development. Even developers working on small projects do not need such high-end frameworks as they can confuse them with added functionalities.
Requires Immense Learning Curve – Another primary disadvantage of the Django mobile app framework is the time needed to understand its unique features and configurations. Although it’s written in python, which is pretty simple and straightforward, its parts can confuse the development. For instance, Django uses a different syntax because python and developers do not understand it quickly. You need to learn such minor and major aspects before you finally become an expert with it.
Request Issues – Being unique helps you stand out from the rest, but some aspects can become advantages with time. Indeed, Django can’t handle multiple requests simultaneously, and it eats more time to fulfill each request. You need to make requests for individual processes, and it slows down the complete development cycle.
No Conventions – Having no conventions is also on the list of disadvantages for using Django mobile app development. It doesn’t set standards or principles that developers can follow for comprehensive web and app development. The developers work on more than one framework, and the ones coming from the convention over configuration environments find it difficult to cope with Django from the initial stages.
Endnotes
Even after these minor drawbacks, Django mobile app development framework is becoming popular among enterprises looking for solutions. However, we believe that Django is not an app perfect for small web and app developments as better solutions are available in the market like Flask. The Developers community is also not holding back and constantly working to improve it with new functionalities and libraries that make development super easy.
Handling projects capabilities have grown immensely for Django since its creation. With every update, it’s adding significant new functionalities. It has a lot to offer in the future because it runs on Python programming language. We suggest consulting the experts from Python development services before you make any decision regarding the development. That’s it from our end. Until next time.