Clear and simple, fast and reliable, flexible and scalable. The Django programming framework is great when it comes to building Python-based applications. As a fully-equipped, open-source toolkit with highly customisable architecture, it encourages quick development and simple code structure.
But what’s really significant is that Django isn’t just an excellent framework for start-ups, as some may assume. It also performs outstandingly well during the further development of full-blown projects. So, let’s take a closer look at some of the biggest Django players on the market that have made good use of this technology, and see how it’s helped them grow and evolve.
1. Disqus
This is one of the largest Django projects so far. Mostly recognized as a popular and easy-to-use plug-in for comments, it also features an advanced analytics tool and configurable ad serving.
The Python developers behind it were able to find a way to not only build the app from scratch using Django, but also to scale it so that it could handle millions of users. They even used the framework to develop some side projects (like Sentry - an error reporting tool) that are pretty popular among devs these days. Disqus is now leveraging other technologies as well, but it pretty much sticks to Django because of its large community and wide selection of ready-to-implement solutions.
2. Instagram
This Python-based photo and video-sharing social network is crazy popular, and it needs to process huge amounts of data and manage an even greater number of interactions between users every single second.
The Django framework helps Instagram deal with all of this in perfect accordance with its three core principles: keep it simple, don’t reinvent the wheel, and go with proven and solid technologies. Plus, Instagram devs are also using Sentry by Disqus.
3. Spotify
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Spotify has revolutionized the way people listen to music, making its wide library accessible to everyone on any device. There are options to either use it for free or buy an ad-free subscription plan.
To develop the app, Spotify bet on Python for both backend services and machine learning. And in order to make the most of this programming language, they also combined it with the Django framework.
4. YouTube
There’s no need to introduce this website, since it’s already become a synonym for the term “video-sharing platform”. Originally it was a PHP-based project, but the constant need to improve its performance and add new functionalities forced YT to turn to Python as well.
As new features and upgrades need to be implemented in the least time-consuming and most effortless manner possible, Django is a big help to the YouTube team of developers, allowing them to act quickly and flawlessly.
5. The Washington Post
Did you know that Django was initially created to run a content-driven web app for the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper publisher? And today, some of the biggest titles in the world also take advantage of it!
Django allows The Washington Post website to handle huge traffic, providing fast and efficient performance. For the same reason, the framework is also leveraged by The Guardian, the satirical newspaper The Onion, and partially by The New York Times, as well.
6. Bitbucket
This cloud-based Git repository hosting service was launched in 2008. Ten years later, the platform is used by millions of developers, who in 2017 alone merged 17 million pull requests and created 6 million repositories. And the core technology behind it is Python paired with the Django framework.
Bitbucket developers praise Django for its wide and vibrant community, as well as for the fact that it offers so many parts that are ready to use. This way, they don’t have to build every new feature from scratch, and can focus on feature development instead.
7. Dropbox
Dropbox is one of the most popular cloud storage services for documents, videos, pictures, and so on. This online drive is available for various devices, allowing its users to access it anywhere, anytime.
The platform is powered primarily by Python (both the server and the desktop client software), which is why it was able to develop so fast. Dropbox devs also chose the Django framework to enable storing, synchronization, and sharing options for various types of files.
8. Eventbrite
The website was launched in 2006 as an event management and ticketing service. It was originally written in Python, on top of a few in-house frameworks that simply became inefficient as the platform experienced rapid growth.
In 2010, the Eventbrite dev team took its firsts steps towards moving to the Django web framework. This was a great choice, as they needed to be able to scale for traffic in order to handle as many hits per second as possible. From a technical point of view, Django laid a solid foundation for the future development of the entire business, allowing Eventbrite to serve more and more users.
9. Mozilla
Still one of the most popular and recognizable browsers in the world, Mozilla has to handle tremendous traffic. Not all of its components are written in Python, but all the new ones are, and they also take advantage of Django.
For instance, the support site and the add-ons are built with Django. The latter benefits from this the most. Why? Because after switching from PHP to Python (and, respectively, from CakePHP to the Django framework), it became much more capable of dealing with tens, and then hundreds of millions of views per month, and even more API hits per day.
10. Prezi
Prezi is a beautifully designed web-based presentation software - a pretty powerful alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint. It features a map-like overview with zoom-in/zoom-out options instead of the classic slide-based format.
But the most interesting part of this project is that they stuck with Django from the very beginning. Why? The answer is simple. They wanted to be able to scale seamlessly, and in the most effective way - both in terms of time and costs. And their plan worked brilliantly: Prezi has just exceeded 100 million users worldwide, who have created 325 million presentations, that have been viewed over… 3.5 billion times.
Source: original content
Python Programming Language
- Dipak Niroula
