django

Django is a high-level Python web framework built around rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. It ships with extensive documentation, a set of tutorials for getting started in order, topical guides, HOWTOs, and a full reference, all organized specifically for developers who are just getting started as well as those solving specific problems later. It's aimed at Python developers building web applications who want a full framework with strong documentation and an established community behind it, rather than assembling a stack from smaller pieces themselves.

Key features

• Rapid, pragmatic design philosophy: the framework is explicitly built around making development fast without sacrificing clean design, per the project's own description.
• Structured, extensive documentation: full docs live in the repo's docs directory and online, organized into an install guide, ordered tutorials, topical guides, HOWTOs for specific problems, and a detailed reference section.
• Ordered onboarding path: the README lays out a specific recommended reading order, install guide, then tutorials in sequence, then topical guides, HOWTOs, and reference, rather than leaving new users to figure out where to start.
• Deployment guidance: dedicated documentation covers setting up an actual deployment server, separate from the local development tutorials.
• Ticket-based issue tracking: documentation problems can be reported through a formal ticket system, with login via GitHub or a DjangoProject account.
• Active community channels: a Django Discord community and the Django Forum are both maintained for getting help beyond the documentation.
• Foundation-backed: development is supported by the Django Software Foundation, which the README asks users who depend on Django to help fund.
• Documentation kept current: the README notes docs are updated rigorously, and invites anyone who finds a problem to file a ticket rather than let it linger.
• Buildable docs: the docs/README covers how to build a local HTML version of the documentation, for anyone who wants an offline or customized copy.

Ideal use cases

Django fits Python developers building web applications who want a single, well-documented framework covering the full stack, from URL routing through to deployment guidance, rather than picking and combining smaller libraries themselves. Its heavy investment in structured documentation, tutorials, topical guides, HOWTOs, and reference material, makes it a reasonable choice for teams that value a clear, well-trodden learning path and a large existing community, including developers newer to web development who want a guided path rather than open-ended framework research.

It's a weaker fit if your project isn't in Python, obviously, or if you need something significantly lighter-weight for a very small service where a full framework's structure and conventions would be more overhead than benefit. The README doesn't detail Django's specific feature set (ORM, admin, templating, and so on) directly, so if you need to evaluate exact feature fit, the linked topical guides and reference docs are the place to check before committing. It's also worth noting the README points at the "stable" docs by default, which fits teams that want to build against a settled version rather than track in-development changes.

Installation

The README doesn't include an install command directly in its text. It points to docs/intro/install.txt, also published at docs.djangoproject.com, for installation instructions, as the first step in its recommended reading order, followed by the ordered tutorials.

For a standard Python project, the conventional approach, not explicitly spelled out in this README, is to install Django from PyPI inside a virtual environment:

pip install django

After installing, the README's own recommended path is to work through the tutorials in docs/intro/tutorial01.txt, tutorial02.txt, and so on, in order, before moving to topical guides and reference docs for specific problems. Once you're ready to put an app on a real server, docs/howto/deployment/index.txt covers deployment specifically, separate from the local getting-started material. If you plan to run Django's own test suite rather than just use the framework, the "Unit tests" section of the contributing documentation covers the exact steps for that, and the contributing guide more broadly explains how to get involved in the project itself.