Django Extensions, Plug-ins and Related Libraries

Django is a Python web framework.

Part of Django's widespread adoption comes from a broad ecosystem of open source code libraries that augment the core framework.

It's good to familiarize yourself with the following projects to learn what is available to you beyond the extensive "batteries-included" code base.

These projects, ordered alphabetically, can also be helpful as example code for how to build your own applications.

AuditLog

Auditlog (project documentation) is a Django app that logs changes to Python objects, similar to the Django admin's logs but with more details and output formats. Auditlog's source code is provided as open source under the MIT license.

Example code found in the AuditLog project:

django-allauth

django-allauth (project website) is a Django library for easily adding local and social authentication flows to Django projects. It is open source under the MIT License.

Code used for examples from the django-allauth project:

django-angular

django-angular (project examples website) is a library with helper code to make it easier to use Angular as the front-end to Django projects. The code for django-angular is provided as open source under the MIT license.

Code from django-angular is shown on:

django-appmail

Django-Appmail (PyPI package information) is a Django app for handling transactional email templates. While the project began development as a way to work with the Mandrill transactional API, it is not exclusive to that API. The project simply provides a way to store and render email content. The library does not send or receive emails.

Django-Appmail is open sourced under the MIT license.

django-axes

django-axes (project documentation and PyPI package information) is a code library for Django projects to track failed login attempts against a web application. The goal of the project is to make it easier for you to stop people and scripts from hacking your Django-powered website.

The code for django-axes is open source under the MIT license and maintained by the group of developers known as Jazzband.

django-cors-headers

django-cors-headers is an open source library for enabling Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) handling in your Django web applications and appropriately dealing with HTTP headers for CORS requests.

Code examples from the django-cors-headers project:

django-cms

django-cms (project website) is a Python-based content management system (CMS) library for use with Django web apps that is open sourced under the BSD 3-Clause "New" License.

Example code from django-cms:

django-debug-toolbar

django-debug-toolbar (project documentation and PyPI page) grants a developer detailed request-response cycle information while developing a Django web application. The code for django-debug-toolbar is open source and maintained by the developer community group known as Jazzband.

Django DownloadView

django-downloadview (project documentation and PyPI package information) is a Django extension for serving downloads through your web application. While typically you would use a web server to handle static content, sometimes you need to control file access, such as requiring a user to register before downloading a PDF. In that situations, django-downloadview is a handy library to avoid boilerplate code for common scenarios.

django-easy-timezones

django-easy-timezones (project website) is a Django middleware code library to simplify handling time data in your applications using users' geolocation data.

Useful example code found within django-easy-timezones:

django-environ

django-environ (project documentation and PyPI page) is a library that aims to make it easier to configure your Django project's configuration through environment variables. The philosophy is inspired by the Twelve-Factor App set of principles.

django-environ is open source under the MIT license.

django-extensions

django-extensions (project documentation and PyPI page) is a Django project that adds a bunch of additional useful commands to the manage.py interface. This GoDjango video provides a quick overview of what you get when you install it into your Python environment.

The django-extensions project is open sourced under the MIT license.

django-filer

django-filer (project documentation) is a file management library for uploading and organizing files and images in Django's admin interface. The project's code is available under the BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" open source license.

Code from django-filer can be found on these pages:

django-filter

django-filter (project documentation and PyPI page) makes it easier to filter down querysets from the Django ORM by providing common bits of boilerplate code. django-filter is provided as open source.

django-flexible-subscriptions

django-flexible-subscriptions (project documentation and PyPI package information) provides boilerplate code for adding subscription and recurrent billing to Django web applications. Various payment providers can be added on the back end to run the transactions.

The django-flexible-subscriptions project is open sourced under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

django-floppyforms

django-floppyforms (project documentation and PyPI page) is a Django code library for better control over rendering HTML forms in your templates.

The django-floppyforms code is provided as open source and maintained by the collaborative developer community group Jazzband.

Code from django-floppyforms is used as examples for the following parts of Django:

django.db.models DateField

django-guardian

django-guardian (project documentation and PyPI page) provides per-object permissions in Django projects by enhancing the existing authentication backend. The project's code is open source under the MIT license.

django-haystack

django-haystack (project website and PyPI page) is a search abstraction layer that separates the Python search code in a Django web application from the search engine implementation that it runs on, such as Apache Solr, Elasticsearch or Whoosh.

The django-haystack project is open source under the BSD license.

django-import-export

django-import-export (documentation and PyPI page) is a Django code library for importing and exporting data from the Django Admin. The tool supports many export and import formats such as CSV, JSON and YAML. django-import-export is open source under the BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License.

django-inline-actions

django-inline-actions (PyPI package information) is an extension that adds actions to the Django Admin InlineModelAdmin and ModelAdmin changelists. The project is open sourced under the BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License.

django-jet

django-jet (project documentation, PyPI project page and more information) is a fancy Django Admin panel replacement.

The django-jet project is open source under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.

django-jsonfield

django-jsonfield (jsonfield on PyPI) is a Django code library that makes it easier to store validated JSON in a Django object-relational mapper (ORM) database model.

The django-jsonfield project is open source under the MIT license.

django-linear-migrations

django-linear-migrations (PyPI package information) is a Django code library to mitigate conflicting database migrations, which can cause non-deterministic behavior in different environments. The introductory blog post by the package author does a good job of explaining the problem and how this library prevents the issue. This library is open sourced under the MIT license.

django-loginas

django-loginas (PyPI package information) is Django code library for admins to log into an application as another user, typically for debugging purposes.

django-loginas is open source under the BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License.

django-markdown-view

django-markdown-view (PyPI package information) is a Django extension for serving Markdown files as Django templates. The project is open sourced under the BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" license.

django-migration-linter

django-migration-linter (PyPI package information) checks for backwards-incompatible changes in Django ORM schema migrations and warns you about them. The purpose of the project is to save time in older and larger projects by detecting field migrations that will be a problem so you do not run into issues later, and make it easier to enable continuous deployment configurations with database changes. There is a blog post on keeping Django database migrations backward compatible that goes into further detail on the tool.

The django-migration-linter project is open sourced under the Apache 2.0 license.

django-model-utils

django-model-utils (project documentation and PyPI package information) provides useful mixins and utilities for working with Django ORM models in your projects.

The django-model-utils project is open sourced under the BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License and it is maintained by the developer community group Jazzband.

django-mongonaut

django-mongonaut (project documentation and PyPI package information) provides an introspective interface for working with MongoDB via mongoengine. The project has its own new code to map MongoDB to the Django Admin interface.

django-mongonaut's highlighted features include automatic introspection of mongoengine documents, the ability to constrain who sees what and what they can do, and full control for adding, editing and deleting documents.

The django-mongonaut project is open sourced under the MIT License and it is maintained by the developer community group Jazzband.

django-oauth-toolkit

django-oauth-toolkit (project website and PyPI package information) is a code library for adding and handling OAuth2 flows within your Django web application and API.

The django-oauth-toolkit project is open sourced under the FreeBSD license and it is maintained by the developer community group Jazzband.

Code examples provided by django-oauth-toolkit:

django.http HttpResponseForbidden

django-oscar

django-oscar (project website) is a framework for building e-commerce sites on top of Django. The code for the project is available open source under a custom license written by Tangent Communications PLC.

Further code examples from django-oscar:

django-pipeline

django-pipeline (project documentation and PyPI package information) is a code library for handling and compressing static content assets when handling requests in Django web applications.

The django-pipeline project is open sourced under the MIT License and it is maintained by the developer community group Jazzband.

django-push-notifications

django-push-notifications is a Django app for storing and interacting with push notification services such as Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple Notifications. The django-push-notification project's source code is available open source under the MIT license.

Django REST Framework

Django REST Framework (project homepage and documentation, PyPI package information and more resources on Full Stack Python), often abbreviated as "DRF", is a popular Django extension for building web APIs. The project has fantastic documentation and a wonderful quickstart that serve as examples of how to make it easier for newcomers to get started.

The project is open sourced under the Encode OSS Ltd. license.

Django Request Token

Django Request Token (PyPI package information) encapsulates the logic for issuing expiring and one-time tokens with a Django web application to use with protected URLs. Note that PostgreSQL as your backend database is a dependency for using this project.

The Django Request Token project is open sourced under the MIT license.

django-rq

django-rq (PyPI package information) is an RQ-based task queue that integrates with Django as an app. This project is useful when you need a lightweight task queue and do not want to go through configuring Celery in your project. django-rq is open sourced under the MIT license.

django-simple-task

django-simple-task (project documentation and PyPI package information) is a task runner similar but more brittle than other task queues such as Celery and RQ. django-simple-task requires Django 3.0's new ASGI event loop functionality to work properly. It is open sourced under the MIT license.

django-sitetree

django-sitetree (project documentation and PyPI package information) is a Django extension that makes it easier for developers to add site trees, menus and breadcrumb navigation elements to their web applications.

The django-sitetree project is provided as open source under the BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License.

django-smithy

django-smithy is a Django code library that allows users to send HTTP requests from the Django admin user interface. The code for the project is open source under the MIT license.

Code examples from django-smithy are shown on the following pages:

django-sql-explorer

django-sql-explorer (PyPI page), also referred to as "SQL Explorer", is a code library for the Django Admin that allows approved, authenticated users to view and execute direct database SQL queries. The tool keeps track of executed queries so users can share them with each other, as well as export results to downloadable formats. django-sql-explorer is provided as open source under the MIT license.

django-tables2

django-tables2 (projection documentation and PyPI page) is a code library for Django that simplifies creating and displaying tables in Django templates, especially with more advanced features such as pagination and sorting. The project and its code are available as open source.

django-taggit

django-taggit (project documentation and PyPI page) provides a way to create, store, manage and use tags in a Django project. The code for django-taggit is open source and maintained by the collaborative developer community group Jazzband.

django-user-visit

django-user-visit (PyPI package information) is a Django app and middleware for tracking daily user visits to your web application. The goal is to record per user per day instead of for every request a user sends to the application. The project is provided as open source under the MIT license.

django-version-checks

django-version-checks (PyPI package) is a code library to ensure external system dependencies match desired versions. For example, a specific version of PostgreSQL or MySQL as your database backend. This is different from using pip and a requirements.txt file, because those are Python dependencies, rather than system-wide software. The introductory blog post for the project has some good reasons why these external dependencies can cause problems if they vary from the expected versions.

django-version-checks is provided as open source under the MIT license.

django-webshell

django-webshell is an extension for executing arbitrary code in the Django admin, similar to how you can run code by using the django manage.py shell command from the terminal.

The django-webshell project is provided as open source under the MIT license.

django-webtest

django-webtest (PyPI package information) is a Django extension that makes it easier to use WebTest with your projects.

The project is open sourced under the MIT license.

django-wiki

django-wiki (project documentation, demo, and PyPI page) is a wiki system code library for Django projects that makes it easier to create user-editable content. The project aims to provide necessary core features and then have an easy plugin format for additional features, rather than having every exhaustive feature built into the core system. django-wiki is a rewrite of an earlier now-defunct project named django-simplewiki.

The code for django-wiki is provided as open source under the GNU General Public License 3.0.

elasticsearch-django

elasticsearch-django (PyPI package information) is a Django app for managing ElasticSearch indexes populated by Django ORM models. The project is available as open source under the MIT license.

pytest-django

pytest-django (project documentation and PyPI page) is a code library that makes it easier to use pytest with Django applications. The project and its code are open sourced under the BSD 3-clause license.

wagtail

wagtail (project website) is a fantastic Django-based CMS with code that is open source under the BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License.

Example code from wagtail shown on these pages: