Top 100 Django Packages of 2020: Download Stats & Trends

0. Django

In 2020 Django itself was downloaded 65.5 million times, up from 41 million in 2019, indicating roughly a 50 % increase in popularity.

1. REST

Half of Django installations involve the REST framework. The djangorestframework package had over 34 million downloads, while the older mis‑named ddjango‑rest‑framework still received 5 million.

- djangorestframework            34 227 575
- django-cors-headers            17 980 262
- django-rest-framework           5 012 054
- django-rest-swagger             3 834 364
- djangorestframework-jwt         3 663 231
- djangorestframework-simplejwt   3 285 074
- graphene-django                 2 447 735
- django-rest-auth                2 238 789
- djangorestframework-camel-case  1 913 461
- djangorestframework-csv         1 819 678
- django-tastypie                 1 305 827
- djangorestframework-stubs         973 349
- djangorestframework-filters       902 035
- djangorestframework-xml           891 171

Update: djoser – the authentication package for the REST framework – recorded 750 208 downloads, a slight decline compared with the top‑100.

2. Development Utilities

Utility packages are very popular. The rise of static typing pushed django-stubs into the top‑100. For legacy projects, django-compactpackage helps use modern Django features.

- django-extensions       16 406 788
- django-debug-toolbar    10 453 779
- pylint-django            5 776 115
- django-waffle            2 239 980
- django-stubs             2 010 553
- django-silk              1 738 951
- django-compat            1 040 285

3. ORM Extensions & Form/Serializer Fields

Django’s rich ORM and native DB type support attract many third‑party packages, making selection difficult.

- django-filter             16 706 350
- django-model-utils         5 855 904
- django-timezone-field      5 135 947
- django-import-export       4 059 689
- django-phonenumber-field   3 788 927
- django-mptt                3 530 540
- django-countries           3 395 824
- django-simple-history      2 929 907
- django-taggit              2 500 534
- django-mysql               2 429 771
- django-polymorphic         2 424 916
- django-localflavor         2 395 908
- django-reversion           2 141 762
- django-picklefield         1 998 291
- django-treebeard           1 960 088
- django-dirtyfields         1 752 146
- django-jsonfield           1 382 853
- django-bitfield            1 375 136
- django-bulk-update         1 272 312
- django-modeltranslation    1 093 761
- django-modelcluster          907 941

4. Testing

Discussions about embedding pytest-django into Django core highlight missing features, yet pytest remains the most popular test runner.

- pytest-django           12 145 477
- django-nose              3 378 225
- django-coverage-plugin   1 225 145

5. Forms

Forms are a strong point of Django, reducing manual HTML. Numerous packages enhance form rendering in 2020.

- django-crispy-forms           5 130 503
- django-widget-tweaks          2 603 999
- django-formtools              2 348 083
- django-ckeditor               1 720 610
- django-autocomplete-light     1 425 283
- django-bootstrap4             1 121 947
- django-bootstrap3             1 119 687
- django-multiselectfield       1 100 977
- django-tinymce                  963 423

6. Caching

Django ships with a Memcache backend, but Redis remains popular via third‑party packages. django-cacheops offers convenient QuerySet caching and event‑driven invalidation.

- django-redis          9 400 461
- django-redis-cache    2 083 225
- django-cacheops       1 130 117

7. Settings

While many hope Django defaults are deployment‑ready, only a small fraction use django-environ. Others rely on os.environ.get.

- dj-database-url       7 573 407
- django-appconf        6 783 029
- django-environ        5 588 732
- django-constance      1 159 432

Update: the initial version missed the dj-database-url package.

8. Background Jobs

Background processing is crucial; Celery (≈35 million downloads) can be used without special Django configuration.

- django-celery-beat      4 427 330
- django-celery-results   3 308 005
- django-celery           1 492 722
- django-crontab          1 271 395
- django-rq                 972 330

Other competitors such as dramatiq and huey have lower download counts.

9. Authentication & Authorization

External service integration is the most demanded feature. django-guardian has long led row‑level permissions.

- social-auth-app-django 4 228 917
- django-allauth         3 563 403
- django-oauth-toolkit   2 851 276
- django-otp             1 945 657
- django-guardian        1 797 562
- django-auth-ldap       1 193 910

10. Shortcuts & Helpers

Core Django does not include all convenient shortcuts; several utility packages rank high in downloads.

- django-ipware             4 102 954
- django-braces             2 250 861
- django-user-agents        1 468 511
- django-annoying           867 588

11. Front‑end Tools

Front‑end integration ranks low because most projects use native JavaScript tools.

- django-js-asset        3 924 030
- django-webpack-loader  3 439 016
- django-compressor      2 969 084
- django-pipeline        1 085 094

12. Security

Django provides built‑in ClickJacking and CSRF protection. Third‑party packages add rate limiting and CSP.

- django-axes           2 071 982
- django-ratelimit      1 341 813
- django-csp            1 339 511

13. Email

Cloud‑service‑backed email packages are popular; Amazon SES is among the top.

- django-ses            1 992 158
- django-anymail        1 858 837

14. Monitoring

Monitoring helpers improve Django observability. Sentry dominates with 42 million downloads, though not listed among the top‑100.

- django-health-check       1 933 588
- django-prometheus         1 742 891
- django-log-request-id     1 041 023

15. Administration

Admin enhancements have improved over the years; django-grappelli leads with the most attractive styling.

- django-grappelli           1 518 684
- django-admin-rangefilter   1 385 710
- django-admin-sortable2     1 012 336
- django-object-actions      1 015 603

16. Search

Full‑text search support is the final category; libraries for Elasticsearch are common.

- django-haystack           1 255 008
- django-elasticsearch-dsl    934 495

Other Notable Packages

Some excellent packages are not in the top‑100, such as django-storages, django-tables2, django-fsm, django-classy-tags, django-heroku, and django-sekizai. Wagtail downloads are double those of

django-cms</> and should be considered. Django’s latest version includes built‑in async support.</p><pre><code>- channels  3 050 679
- wagtail   1 010 017

This list represents the top‑100 Django packages by download count in 2020, summarizing the ecosystem’s focus and inviting developers to consider missing tools for the coming year.