Django and MongoDB in 2015

So believe it or not my post from 2013 on setting up a Django website with a MongoDB back-end is still one of my most visited pages. Actually that's not hard to believe, it's not like this site is a trove of content (but it's a goal for 2015 to get content more consistently up here!), but 2013 is more than ancient in technology times so I just wanted to do a quick revisit.

Should I follow that blog post and set up a Django app with MongoDB?

Hell no, definitely not now

Admittedly, my website still uses it but that is out of pure laziness and a lack of desire to migrate/work up something new. As is, I'm pretty sure that I have another year and a half before there's a catastrophic problem or a new feature that I absolutely have to have before I need to redo it all. And therein lies the biggest problem with trying to go down this path.

The reason that I wanted to use MongoDB so much was its native usage of JSON (well, BSON) so that I could quickly and easily store data or javascript code for quick on-the-fly visualizations. I wanted Django for its robust admin backend (still why I love it! Nothing else that I've used has anything quite as good). However, now with the newest version of PostgreSQL and its support of JSON as a column type it's possible to get everything I want out of a website using a traditional SQL database (actually the one that Heroku has always wanted you to use anyways). Granted, this means going back to the world of migrations will be a pain but it's easy enough concession to be back on the main branch of Django development.

But what if I really want to put the two together still?

There could still be a pretty valid reason why you want an easy admin interface and a NoSQL backend, but in that case I don't think any of the old instructions may still apply with all of the time that has passed. In all honesty, if you're not making a blog site (or you won't be blogging consistently like me, womp womp) I would suggest not using Django at all and using a custom flask app (which would be simple enough) instead and provide lots of flexibility. If you were tr Buying to make a site as a product, then I wouldn't recommend python at all then and recommend node.js due to the performance benefits.

All in all, it's hard to say what to do in this new world where static site generators are the new hot thing. I still like having the ability to write and save drafts on my website instead of being stuck to a checked out instance of my website (I switch computers and locations...too often still). But in any case, I still like using Heroku even if it is apart of the giant SalesForce conglomerate.