Websites vs. Django Web Apps
To understand what Django can do, comparing websites and web applications may be helpful.
Differences between websites and web applications
There is no strict demarcation, but some critical differences exist between websites and web applications.
Static vs dynamic in user interactions:
- Websites are more static
- Web applications are more dynamic
User data handling:
- Websites handle limited user data
- Web applications store user data in their database and utilize it to provide services
For example, company websites or personal websites are more static and usually don't handle user data.
On the other hand, e-commerce like Amazon or video streaming like Netflix provides more dynamic interactions with users utilizing their user data.
Website coding vs. web application coding
Typically, websites are developed with front-end coding such as HTML and CSS (with some JavaScript coding for dynamic visual effects).
Web applications typically require more effort in backend coding to add dynamic functionalities to web applications, including user data handling. Here, Django comes into play. Django is one of the most popular web frameworks to provide dynamic functionalities. For example, Instagram, Spotify, Pinterest, and many other companies are using Django in their services.