Django is a high-level Python web framework that enables rapid development of secure and maintainable websites. Built by experienced developers, Django takes care of much of the hassle of web development, so you can focus on writing your app without needing to reinvent the wheel. It is free and open source, has a thriving and active community, great documentation, and many options for free and paid-for support.Django can be (and has been) used to build almost any type of website — from content management systems and wikis, through to social networks and news sites. It can work with any client-side framework, and can deliver content in almost any format (including HTML, RSS feeds, JSON, XML, etc). The site you are currently reading is built with Django!
Internally, while it provides choices for almost any functionality you might want (e.g. several popular databases, templating engines, etc.), it can also be extended to use other components if needed.Django helps developers avoid many common security mistakes by providing a framework that has been engineered to “do the right things” to protect the website automatically. For example, Django provides a secure way to manage user accounts and passwords, avoiding common mistakes like putting session information in cookies where it is vulnerable (instead cookies just contain a key, and the actual data is stored in the database) or directly storing passwords rather than a password hash.Django uses a component-based “shared-nothing” architecture (each part of the architecture is independent of the others, and can hence be replaced or changed if needed). Having a clear separation between the different parts means that it can scale for increased traffic by adding hardware at any level: caching servers, database servers, or application servers. Some of the busiest sites have successfully scaled Django to meet their demands (e.g. Instagram and Disqus, to name just two).
