How to Migrate Django Website to WordPress – The Ultimate Guide

Both Django and WordPress are popularly used content management systems.  However, like all systems, there are plenty of differences between the two and to put it simply, WordPress towers over Django, when it comes to usage, features, power, security and on many other parameters that separate the best website framework from the rest.

Django CMS vs WordPress CMS

Take a guess. How many websites, do you think are powered by WordPress? The figure is 38%, and this comes from the WordPress website itself. On the other hand, less than 0.1% websites use Django. These figures alone give you the true picture of which CMS is the clear winner and why you must move your website from Django to WordPress.

Here are some other statistics that you should look at:

WordPress commands a 63.6% market share

55.7% of WordPress websites figure in the list of the top 1000 websites. Source

One of the biggest reasons why website migration from Django to WordPress makes an infinite amount of sense is because of the ever-growing WordPress development community. The platform is constantly evolving courtesy the huge number of plugins and extensions that are being developed and which can be used to extend website functionality. Your WordPress website will get better and better, while there is a chance that the Django website will remain stagnant.

Django is not easy to use or customize. It has a monolithic framework and developers have to write a lot of code, considering it has fewer dependencies. Comparatively WordPress has more dependencies, doesn’t demand as much coding and more importantly it ensures the available plugins are easy to use. And most importantly, you can use WordPress to create all manner of sites right from personal websites to SMB websites and enterprise level websites. 

You must convert Django to WordPress considering that WordPress websites can scale to meet the growing needs of your business and more importantly are extremely easy to use and maintain. This isn’t true for Django websites as their maintenance require a steep learning curve.

But one of the biggest differences between Django and WordPress is that the former is built on Python, while the latter is a PHP-based framework.

Python vs. PHP

Let’ talk about PHP first.

PHP stands for Hypertext-Preprocessor and it is a server-side scripting language that made its appearance on the scene in 1995. Since then it has been actively used for the creation of HTML content and all those flash animation, PDFs, dynamic websites and a whole lot more. The reason for its popularity is it is ease of use and the fact that a large number of popularly used databases such as MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL and more are integrated with it.

Python was released in 1991, a few years before PHP and is highly regarded as a general-purpose programming language. It accelerates development courtesy its built-in data structures coupled with dynamic typing and binding. You can see python being extensively used in machine learning applications, and wherever there is a demand for complex programming and computing. Some of the world’s biggest and more popular applications are built on Python.

Comparison between Python and PHP

So, what’s the final word? Does PHP score over Python or vice versa. It is a toss up really, but the key here is the framework. The problems with a language are carried over to the framework and this is what has happened in the case of Django. The reason why Django to WordPress conversion makes sense is that the limitations of Python are nullified due to the extensive capabilities of PHP.

How to Choose the Best Language for Your Web Development?

This is a very interesting question because there are no easy answers. But there is no beating the value of statistics, in order to get the right answer. So, let’s take a look at a few:

Source

69.7% of professional developers prefer using JavaScript, more than half of then prefer using SQL and so on and so forth. So, you get an idea of how programming languages are being used. But let’s take a drill down and see how programmers choose the perfect language for a project:

Application

The type of application you are building whether a web app, mobile app, firmware etc. has a huge role to play in choosing the right language. Ideally, pick a language that can help you build apps for different platforms.

Ease of Use

The easier the language, the faster the web development. You mustn’t pick a language that consumes a lot of time because of its complex syntax. E.g. PHP is very easy to use and therefore the coding process is much faster.

Frameworks

The popularity and usability of the language can be evaluated by the framework the particular language is used for, and the popularity of those frameworks. In this particular case, WordPress a PHP based framework is far more popular than Django, a python-framework.

Documentation

What do you do, if you face a programming issue? Is there help available? This is where documentation comes in, and you must choose a language for which tons of documentation is easily available. In case, you encounter a problem, the documentation can help solve it.

Growing Ecosystem Support

This is related to the earlier point. The amount of available documentation is directly proportional to the nature of its ecosystem. Choose a language which has a large ecosystem that is constantly providing updates to better the language.

Project Size and Complexity

Size matters. If you want to build a large and complex site with a large amount of data sets and integration, a language purpose built for developing such projects must be chosen. A case in point being PHP. This means you can easily integrate a CMS such as WordPress to create the kind of website you want, irrespective of size.

Hassle -Free Maintenance

PHP is very easy to maintain courtesy it’s huge ecosystem of libraries. This is why CMS to CMS migration from Django to WordPress, makes sure that your site can now be maintained easily, and the support costs go down dramatically.

Security Perspective

In a world where your website will be in the crosshairs of attackers and must meet stringent compliance regulations, choosing a secure language is par for the course. It is imperative that you avoid the limitations of monolithic languages and leverage the benefit of dynamic languages.

Why PHP?

Source

See that figure. It tells you PHP is miles ahead of other languages when it comes to usage. It is used by 78.9% of websites. Why? Let’s take a look:

Open Source Language

The biggest benefit of this language is that its open source and not proprietary. The web development costs immediately come down because its free to use, and you are not dependent on the vendor to come up with upgrades and pay through your nose for it.

Platform Agnostic

Your web application can adapt to the meet the needs of all browsers as it has cross-platform compatibility.  You can add as many features and functionalities knowing that the web app is going to perform smoothly.

Flexibility in Database

You have a choice of connecting numerous databases such as MySQL, Oracle, SQLLite, and more, which means developing scalable applications becomes very easy. Again, a reason why Django to WordPress conversion makes sense.

The Library Advantage

The fact that it is open source means there are plenty of libraries available and you can choose the necessary modules that can enhance the functional attributes of your website. A huge reason why it is the preferred language for websites.

High on Performance

Based on a PHPNG engine, PHP 7 achieves a high rating on the performance scale and is an improvement over the earlier PHP interpreter. Pages are returned with twice the speed, which means pages are loaded quickly.

Super HTML Compatibility

Synchronization between HTML and PHP is absolutely top-class, and there is no interference between the two. PHP complements the working of HTML, which has an impact on the quality of your website.

Why Migrate Django CMS to WordPress?

You must switch to WordPress from Django. Here’s why:

Difficult to Maintain

First and foremost, a Django website is really difficult to maintain considering the tight coupling of its various components. This means maintenance is components-based which can result in complexities and errors. WordPress on the other hand, keeps its components loosely coupled, which makes maintenance easier.

Outdated Functionality

If you want to build a website with all the contemporary features in place, that your target user expects, then Django’s outdated modules won’t get the job done. What you need are the huge number of plugins and extensions available on WordPress, that can be used to achieve a range of functionalities.

Limited Creativity

The monolithic and pattern intensive nature of Django means you might not be able to give full vent to your creative pursuit. This means the website does not look and feel the way you want it to, which is not a problem in WordPress at all. With WordPress, you can control the functional and visual appeal of your site.  

Slower Website

Speed is a problem in Django, because Python, the language it is built upon, is not very fast. So, you might have to compromise on certain website aspects to improve website loading speed. WordPress on the other hand is driven by PHP which is known for its speed which makes your WordPress website fast.

Not a Right Fit for All Websites

Django is not the right choice for small websites as some of the advanced features of Django can impact the functionality of some of the sites. However, WordPress caters to the requirements of all sites, and features integration via extensions and plugins is a seamless exercise.

The Django ORM System

Developers can use Django’s ORM system for connecting Django to different databases; unfortunately, the ORM is quite limiting as compared to other ORMs meaning developers have their work cut out for them; this can result in slower development and probably more errors.