by Valeria Letusheva

Highlights from the Django Developer Survey 2024

feature
May 09, 20245 mins
Development Libraries and FrameworksPythonSoftware Development

Python developers still prefer Django but are exploring alternative frameworks to draw on specific features or adapt to changing project demands.

Python in alphabet letters
Credit: eamesBot/Shutterstock

Django has been a leading “batteries included” Python web framework for more than a decade. The fifth major release, which arrived in December, brought even more power and ease to Django.

Curious about the latest Django development trends? JetBrains’ PyCharm team, in collaboration with the Django Foundation, surveyed over 4,000 developers worldwide to analyze framework usage. Here’s what we found:

Prefer to watch? View the discussion video featuring Django Board Member Sarah Abderemane, Django Fellow Sarah Boyce, and JetBrains Developer Advocate Paul Everitt as they explore the findings from the Django Developer Survey.

Dive into this post to explore more about these trends and check out infographics on Django development.

Django popularity shifts slightly

Django continues to be the preferred framework for 74% of Python developers, down from 83% last year. This slight decline indicates that Django developers are exploring alternative frameworks, likely to utilize specific features or adapt to changing project demands.

django developer survey 01 JetBrains

Web developers mix Django, Flask, and FastAPI

One-third of web developers who work primarily with Django also use Flask or FastAPI, showing diverse back-end skills. FastAPI retains its appeal with 25% of developers, while Flask’s usage dipped slightly from 29% in 2022 to 26% in 2023.

django developer survey 02 JetBrains

Only 11% of Django developers use all three frameworks, suggesting a preference for Flask and FastAPI in similar contexts, with a shift toward FastAPI for its asynchronous features. Explore detailed comparisons between Django and Flask and Django and FastAPI to determine which framework best fits your project needs.

Django leads for full-stack and API development

This year’s survey shows Django is preferred for full-stack (74%) and API development (60%), with a notable shift towards API work among employed developers. The rise of HTMX may steer more developers back towards using Django for full-stack projects.

django developer survey 03 JetBrains

Interested in API development? Check out this tutorial on building APIs with the Django REST Framework.

Rising popularity of HTMX, Alpine.js, and Tailwind CSS

Django developers are increasingly favoring newer, simpler frameworks like HTMX and Alpine.js, with HTMX usage rising from 16% in 2022 to 23% in 2023, and Alpine.js growing from 6% to 10%. Despite still-prevalent use of established JavaScript frameworks—Vue at 19%, jQuery at 31%, and React at 35%—overall adoption has declined.

django developer survey 04 JetBrains

The popularity of Tailwind CSS has surged, doubling over the past two years, while that of Bootstrap continues to fall. This trend indicates a growing preference for Tailwind CSS’s customizable, less prescriptive styling approach in web projects. For a comprehensive introduction to using Tailwind CSS in Django, check out this article by Tailwind CSS creator Tim Kamanin.

django developer survey 05 JetBrains

GitHub Actions: The go-to CI tool for Django developers

The adoption of continuous integration tools among Django developers is on the rise, highlighting a growing appreciation for their role in enhancing development practices and productivity.

django developer survey 06 JetBrains

GitHub Actions, in particular, has seen significant growth, from 35% usage in 2021 to 45% in 2023. Its integration with GitHub for source code management, the use of simple YAML files for pipeline setups, and the ability to customize hardware configurations make it a preferred choice for automating software workflows within GitHub’s ecosystem.

Django developers embrace infrastructure as code

39% percent of Django developers now use infrastructure as code (IaC), reflecting a trend towards automating and managing infrastructure through code. IaC offers more reliable, repeatable, and scalable setups for large projects. Terraform leads this space, preferred by 20% of respondents, making it the top choice for IaC provisioning.

django developer survey 07 JetBrains

Start developing Django apps with PyCharm

Do you work with Django? PyCharm, our popular IDE (integrated development environment) for Python, helps you code faster with Django-specific code insights, code completion, and highlighting. It lets you navigate your project easily, connect to your database in a single click, and work with TypeScript, JavaScript, and front-end frameworks. PyCharm also supports Flask and FastAPI out of the box.

Survey methodology

The Django Developers Survey 2023 gathered approximately 4,000 responses during September and October 2023 via official Django Software Foundation channels, including djangoproject.com and the DSF’s X (formerly Twitter) account, independently of JetBrains.

  • 44% of participants are from Europe.
  • Most respondents fall within the 21 to 49 age range.
  • 32% have more than 11 years of professional coding experience.
  • 79% of respondents are involved in programming, software development, or software engineering roles.

For more details, view the full survey data in the Django Developers Survey 2023 Infographics.

Valeria Letusheva is product marketing manager at JetBrains.

New Tech Forum provides a venue for technology leaders—including vendors and other outside contributors—to explore and discuss emerging enterprise technology in unprecedented depth and breadth. The selection is subjective, based on our pick of the technologies we believe to be important and of greatest interest to InfoWorld readers. InfoWorld does not accept marketing collateral for publication and reserves the right to edit all contributed content. Send all inquiries to doug_dineley@foundryco.com.