Django
A batteries-included Python web framework for database-backed applications.
Django is a Python web framework that turns an incoming HTTP request into a response through a fixed pipeline — routing, a view, an ORM-backed model, and a template — with an admin site, authentication, sessions, and forms all included and wired together from the start.
- Difficulty
- intermediate
- Time
- 40+ hours
- Sections written
- 95
Why it matters
- It ships an ORM, admin site, auth, sessions, and templating together, so a database-backed site starts working in minutes, not days of assembling separate libraries.
- The MTV pattern keeps data, logic, and presentation in separate, independently-testable layers.
- The auto-generated admin site gives a working internal management UI for free, from the same models the rest of the app already uses.
- It underpins a large share of production Python web backends, so the patterns here carry directly into real jobs.
Where it is used
- Content-heavy sites and CMSs — the admin site alone covers a large share of internal tooling needs
- Database-backed web applications — e-commerce, SaaS dashboards, marketplaces
- APIs, via Django REST Framework built on top of the same models and views
- Anywhere a team already knows Python and wants a full-stack framework rather than assembling one
The big picture
- Settings — one per project
- leads to URLconf (ROOT_URLCONF)
- URLconf — routes requests
- leads to Apps (dispatches to)
- Apps — models, views, templates
- leads to Admin (registers models)
- leads to Database (reads/writes)
- Admin — generated from models
- Database — via the ORM