10 underrated Django packages
10 underrated Django packages according to the Django Developers Survey
Do you know about the Django Developers Survey? We’re expecting the 2024 survey results soon. In the meantime, here’s an example of ways in which the survey is useful: understanding which packages developers like.
What are your 5 favorite third-party Django packages?
That’s the question as framed in the survey. The top results are expected if you’ve spent time in the Django ecosystem (Django REST Framework, Debug Toolbar, Celery, etc.). However I found it more interesting to review those "% 5 favorite" results when compared to the package downloads figures. That’s what I mean by underrated: relatively high placement in "top 5 fav packages", despite a relatively low download count.
The results
Here we are for the 2023 survey, with the top 5 of packages ordered by % favorite ranking relative to downloads:
- Wagtail (🎉), 8% "top 5" for about 200k downloads
- dj-rest-auth
- django-ninja – there being an official Wagtail integration guide is no accident!
- django-allauth, 18% for 700k downloads
- django-money, 4% "top 5" for 170k downloads
It’s pretty cool that Wagtail is at the top! This is relatively consistent year to year – here are the 2022 survey’s top 5 again looking at % favorite rankings relative to downloads:
The strongest performer here is django-ninja, which had no % favorite ranking in 2022, jumped to 6% in 2023! While django-money went from 2% of top 5 favorite, to 4%.
Up and coming
Packages with the biggest gains beyond the above top 5:
All of the above results exclude packages that only scored 1 or 2% in "top 5 fav" rankings, as at that scale the survey’s low-resolution data is harder to interpret. But here are those packages that are likely to rise in popularity based on their 2022 or 2023 placements:
All in all, for us core Wagtail devs it’s really cool to see people who do use the package appreciate it so much! And those rankings are also great for us to be more aware of which packages we want Wagtail to integrate well with, not just based on current usage levels but also likely trends.
For Wagtail users, this is also a good reminder how much useful ready-made functionality there is in the wider Django package ecosystem! Although Wagtail has its own package ecosystem, a lot of what’s available for Django will work as-is on Wagtail projects.
