Why Django is so impressive for developing with PostgreSQL and Python

This post gives you a brief idea about why you should use PostgreSQL as a backend database with Django. It also describes how to use it and the benefits of using PostgreSQL with Django. 

What is Django?

Django is a free, open-source, and high-level Python-based web framework that supports model-template-view architecture patterns. This framework encourages rapid and clean web development. It takes care of many of the hassles of web development so you can focus on writing a web app without reinventing the wheel.

Some features of Django:

• Fast: Django was designed to help developers to create web apps very quickly from concept to completion (Learn about how Django is ridiculously fast.)
• Secure: Django has many built-in middleware libraries to take care of common security mistakes that developers make, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, or CSRF attack. (Learn about security in Django.)
• Scalable: Some of the high traffic websites developed using Django. Django has the ability to quickly and flexibly scale the website to meet the heaviest traffic demands. (Learn about scalable web applications in Django.)
• “Batteries included”: The Django framework includes many libraries that can be used to handle common web development tasks, like user authentication, content management, RSS feeds, and many more. (Learn about the extra features provided by Django.)
• Versatile: Django is used for almost all types of domains, from content management systems to social networks, scientific computing, and more.

     Learn Django using their Getting Started resources page.

What is PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL is a powerful, open-source, object-relational database system that uses and extends the SQL language in combination with many other features. PostgreSQL has earned a strong reputation for its proven architecture, reliability, data integrity, robust feature set, extensibility, and the dedication of the open-source community behind the software to consistently deliver performant and innovative solutions. PostgreSQL runs on all operating systems and has been ACID-compliant since 2001. To learn PostgreSQL you don’t need much training as it’s easy to use.

The open-source licensing model is also much less expensive compared to Oracle or other proprietary databases. Because so many people and enterprises, ranging from independent developers to MNCs, use PostgreSQL, it’s very easy to find developers with PostgreSQL experience compared to other relational databases. 

The PostgreSQL community also frequently releases updates with great features each time. For example, in the PostgreSQL 9.4 release the JSONB type was added to enhance JSON storage capabilities, the PostgreSQL 9.6 release added phrase search, the PostgreSQL 10 release added the macaddr8 data type, and so on. Visit the PostgreSQL documentation for a detailed feature matrix.

Finally, even if PostgreSQL is not the most popular database in the world, it did win the Database of the Year Award for the last two years, being the fastest-growing database management system.

Some Key features of PostgreSQL: 

• User-defined datatypes
• Table inheritance
• Foreign key referential integrity
• Views, rules
• Triggers
• Streaming replication
• Hot standby
• Nested transactions
• Tablespaces
• Point-in-time recovery (PITR) 
• Support of SQL (relational) and JSON (non-relational) query
• Compliant with the ANSI SQL standard
•  

You can start learning PostgreSQL using their Getting started resource page.

Benefits of using PostgreSQL with Django

Using PostgreSQL and Django together offers many benefits:

• Django provides a number of data types that will only work with PostgreSQL.
• Django has django.contrib.postgres to make database operations on PostgreSQL. 
• If you are building an application with maps or you are storing geographical data, you need to use PostgreSQL, as GeoDjango is only fully compatible with PostgreSQL.
• PostgreSQL has the richest set of features that are supported by Django.

Here are some of the PostgreSQL-specific features supported by Django:

• PostgreSQL-specific aggregation functions
• PostgreSQL-specific database constraints
• PostgreSQL-specific form fields and widgets
• PostgreSQL-specific database functions
• PostgreSQL-specific model indexes
• PostgreSQL-specific lookups
• Database migration operations
• Full-text search
• Validators

Final Thought

I hope you now understand why you should use Django with PostgreSQL and Python. We have seen how Django is the most powerful web framework and PostgreSQL is the most robust and stable RDBMS. Hopefully, for your next web application, you will try using Django and PostgreSQL together.