Explore 13 Practical Applications of Python in Web Development

1. What is Python?

• In short, Python is one of the most popular computer programming languages ​​currently in use.
• This isn’t just an exaggeration: Python is the most popular leading programming language on the software development platform Github, replacing JavaScript.
• A young Dutch coder named Guido van Rossum invented Python in 1991. He wanted to create a multi-purpose programming language that would work in different programming paradigms and emphasize code readability
• At that time, most of the language used in writing was very abstract. Python allowed developers to be more expressive and understandable with programming ideas using fewer codes. This was a big change. And, when Python was first developed for writing basic text, it rose rapidly in popularity. And it has evolved in the digital age.
• Python is sometimes called a “battery” language because of one of its unique features: the Python Package Index (PyPI), which contains more than 70,000 pre-existing code libraries.
• For all these reasons and more, Python is now used in projects large and small, across a wide range of disciplines, from special effects to data analysis to deep learning and, of course, web development.

2. How to use Python for web development?

• The core features of Python make it a popular choice for web development.
• First, Python is free, open source, and widely available. But more importantly, it’s also highly customizable. Python allows developers to create websites according to many different programming paradigms.
• For example, it is suitable for object-oriented (OOP) and functional programming (FP). You can learn the difference between the two in our guide to FP vs OOP.
• It also has dynamic typing capabilities. From a layman's perspective, this simply means that a Python script does not need to be compiled (or interpreted) prior to execution. Instead, they are executed at runtime. This is useful for web development, as it requires minimal coding and is easy to maintain. We can go on and, in fact, we—we created a beginner’s guide to the benefits of web developers learning Python.
• Also, remember how we said Python ranks first among the most popular programming languages? In 2022, JavaScript will lead the way.
• As it turns out, there is a reason for the popularity of these two languages. That is, JavaScript and Python are often used together. Web developers can use JavaScript for the presentation layer (or frontend) and Python for the server side layer (or backend).
• Fortunately, backend coding using Python is much easier using freely available web frameworks in PyPI. Two of these, Django and Flask, are particularly popular and take a lot of the heavy lifting out of backend coding. These libraries are widely recognized for being secure, scalable, and—once you get a grasp of Python’s simple syntax—easy to use.

3. Real-world examples of Python in web development.

• Is Python that popular, we hear you ask? The answer is a resounding yes!
• Whether you realize it or not, you use it all the time. From binge-watching the latest series on Netflix to checking out their DMs on Instagram, many of our favorite websites and apps include Python in their tech stack. In fact, its ubiquity alone is proof that it’s worth including Python in your development tools.
• Now, let’s take a look at 13 Python website examples that illustrate how dynamic and adaptable this language can be.

• If you ever wanted proof that a company kept pace with digital transformation, Netflix is ​​it! While Netflix used to accept DVDs by mail, they quickly jumped on the digital bandwagon and expanded to become one of the most popular streaming services in the world
• From a web development perspective, Python is at the heart of their success.
• Netflix’s developers explain that they use Python throughout the “full content lifecycle”. In short, this means that Python understands many of Netflix’s applications, from their security tools and recommendation engines, to their internal content delivery networks, to Open Connect (which delivers content pipelines to carriers use the end) and then you know!

• The go-to platform for everything from news to bleeding-edge social commentary, Reddit has long been a staple in the world’s online diet. But did you know that its server side is written in Python?
• You may not realize it, but every time you send a request to Reddit using your browser, the web server (Reddit) uses Python to interpret your request. It then returns the required HTML, which you see in your browser.
• In this case, you can think of Python as the intermediary between your server request and what appears on your screen. Who would have known?

• If you're old enough to remember the tedious days of ripping CDs to your computer's DVD drive (what drive?), you'll appreciate how easy Spotify has made listening to music
• Spotify uses Python extensively in its web backend, which has many interconnected services. According to the company, 80% of these are coded in Python.
• Spotify also has a proprietary data analytics package called Luigi. Designed to quickly model complex data projects, Luigi powers Spotify’s Radio and Discover features, as well as recommendations for people you want to follow and in which language Luigi is coded ? You guessed it: Python.

• Dropbox, the file hosting service first launched in 2008, was doing cloud storage long before it was cool!
• Today it remains at the cutting edge of the field and owes much of its success to Python. Dropbox has been using Python since the beginning, both on the server side and client end.
• Cross-Platform Support and Readability of the Language Dropbox adopted the language because these allowed innovation to be deployed, tested and deployed quickly
• The company also firmly believes in open source capabilities. They often share their new products with the wider world–something we want to see! The company is so focused on Python that from 2012 to 2019 they even employed Guido van Rosm, the inventor of Python.

• Probably the most popular question-and-answer website on the Internet (at least since the departure of Yahoo Answers—RIP), Quora is known for its challenging questions and sometimes questionable answers
• However, it’s well known and it’s another site that uses Python a lot.
• Because it was such a dynamic site, Python allowed Quora to build and test new functionality with fewer lines of code, which made their new feature development easier.
• The ease of use of Python allows designers, data analysts, and even non-technical users to write code as needed. For their perfect tech stack, Quora uses several Python libraries behind it, including Tornado and PyPy.

• Getting from A to B (or ordering takeout) has never happened in our lives since Uber. But did you know that most of the functionality of the ride-hailing app is done in Python? Like Quora, they use Tornado.
• And while Python isn’t the only language Uber uses (it makes up about 35% of its tech stack), most of its backend functionality is based on it. It includes data analytics features for predicting supply and demand, user movement time and arrival time—large-scale mathematical tasks for which Python is well suited.

• Thanks to Amazon, we can have virtually anything delivered to our doorstep with the click of a button, and we don’t have to think about how everything gets there. Thank you, Jeff Bezos! But did you know that Amazon also uses Python?
• Specifically, Amazon engineers developed Python machine learning algorithms that interface with the company’s Hadoop data storage system. This powerful analytics stack powers Amazon’s famous recommendation engine that encourages us to buy new products. By analyzing usage patterns and buying habits, Python helps Amazon recommend more products for us to buy! Cool, right?

• Virtual pinboard and social bookmarking site Pinterest has graced our computer screens for more than a decade.
• It allows users to view a collection of images for everything from dogs to wedding dresses and driftwood art. As is often the case with new websites, Pinterest was originally developed in Python, as those are the languages ​​the developers are most familiar with.
• Since then they’ve taken a more pragmatic approach, with Pinterest’s former chief technology officer Vanja Josifovski explaining that while Pinterest uses multiple programming languages ​​depending on the usage, the site remains independent to machine learning strongly suggests that Python is still an integral part of their technology.

• Lyft: One of the many logos of the company you can find to rent bikes, scooters and cars in cities around the world. Like Uber, there’s no question that they’ve transformed urban transportation. Also like Uber, Python is the native language of the company.

• Google, such a ubiquitous search engine, invented its own verb (Google it, if you don’t know what we mean). Early on, Google’s engineering team famously decided: “Python when we can, C++ when we should.” And hey, it seemed to work for them.
• Today, Python is the “official language” at Google and has many applications running throughout the organization, from system design to implementation to code analysis.
• In fact, as the need for data analytics in big technologies grows, Google uses Python in many of its cutting-edge machine learning and AI projects

• Distracting us from the fury of life through kitten videos since 2005, the world’s most streamed video is a prime real-world example of Python in web development
• YouTube services including videos, administrator videos, data access, and website control templates are just a few of the ways Python powers a site.
• Interestingly, that is not how it started. The original codebase for YouTube was PHP. Within the first few months, however, the developers moved to Python, which had more speed, performance, and flexibility. Pretty solid advertising for Python, in our book.

• The world’s most popular social networking site, Facebook (now hastily renamed meta), has allowed us to connect with our friends (and former stalkers) since 2004.
• Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know the website has its fingers in a lot of the pie, from dating to live-streaming. As a result, it relies on multiple languages ​​for its products and services.
• But Python’s share is not small, at least 21 percent of their codebase, most of which is production engineering. Oh, and remember that Tornado web framework (used by Quora and Uber) we mentioned? Yes, Facebook did it.

• Known for its masterpiece in the creation of the selfie, the photo-sharing platform Instagram is a new social platform that is now so ubiquitous that it’s impossible to imagine life without it. And we have Python to thank.
• Instagram’s original backend was built on the Django framework—used to this day. And since Meta (formerly known as Facebook) bought Instagram, integrating the two platforms has become increasingly complicated. APIs, search methods, and other functionality are all coded in Python. Bet you didn’t know that!

Python in web development Q&As