To understand whether WordPress is better or worse than Django, it is essential to know what is Django. The second article in this series will introduce you to Django web framework.
What is Django
Django is undoubtedly one of the most popular web-development tools today. It is a powerful web framework, built using Python language. That is, WordPress to PHP is what Django is to Python. But then, not exactly. However, more about this below. For now, back to Django.
Django project first saw the light in 2005. It was introduced as open-source web development framework. This attracted many developers across the world to contribute to its source-code. With a rapid growth in popularity and features, the Django projects released its first stable release in 2008. Version 2.0 was released late last year.
What Django is not
No, it is not a movie. Well, it is, but that’s a story for another day.
Django, by itself, is a web framework. It pre-bakes a lot of (mostly non-developer) stuff and significantly cuts down the web server preparation time. Someone using Django can start coding and outputting pages right after Django is installed.
Django does it all. And that’s all that Django does.
Django CMS, on the other hand, presents a ready content management system. Once installed, it already has a landing page and website structure. It has an admin panel, rich with features that allow you to configure your website via your browser. You are not required to type a single line of code with Django CMS.
It is important to understand this distinction as we move towards the apogee of these series.
Who uses Django?
Django does not confine the developer into a certain website structure. Therefore, it can be (and is) used in many different projects. A few websites with global significance are built on Django, such as Instagram, Pinterest, National Geographic, Disqus, Mozilla.
Django is also blessed by being built using Python. Python is the fastest growing programming language in recent years. It is used everywhere, from AI and machine learning projects to statistical and quantitative applications. Therefore, if your project is not confined to a single website but maintains a more diverse platform that supports Python, Django may be the magic solution for integrity.
Does Coderoo recommend using Django?
Absolutely. Hands down. You say: “Django?!”, we say “Let’s do it!!”
Django will not disappoint you, independent of the project size. There are thousands of Django developers throughout the world if you need an extra hand. And there is a vast open-source community if you need an advice. And scalability? With over 400 million daily active users and about 100 million daily photo and video posts, Instagram alone answers that question.
However, again, world-wide-web is a competitive game. You should consider Django in comparison with other web frameworks and CMS’s. Quite often we meet people who opt for a ‘quick-and-dirty’ CMS or web-based website builders because they don’t require much diligence in their exercise. And that could be the optimal way to go for some projects.
About the “Django or WordPress” series
The ever-growing field of web development has produced a countless number of frameworks and content management systems (“CMS”) over the years. Most of them did not stand the test of time. Django and WordPress are two technologies that did. Moreover, they keep growing in popularity and supporting more websites than ever. In Coderoo, we offer web development using both Django and WordPress and many of our customers ask – which one is better? This series will try to answer this question in a nutshell.
Whether you want to build a website on WordPress or on Django, we hope that this series will be helpful for you.
Also in this series:
- Part 1: WordPress
- Part 3: Django vs WordPress – Which one to use? (coming soon)