SAP to open-stack ERP migration
Manufacturer, 500+ employees. Phased migration off SAP ERP onto an open stack with custom modules — run in stages while the plant kept working.
- 0 downtime
- 8 mo migration
- −40% on licences
Django development for products whose value is in the back office
Nobody buys a product for its admin panel, and plenty of companies run on one. Django is what you choose when the internal side is the real system.
What we can show you
Overview
Where Django keeps winning
ORM, migrations, authentication, permissions and an admin — the parts most products rebuild badly are already there and already tested.
What Django gives you in the box, and what that saves
Django is opinionated in the places that matter for business systems: how data is described, how schema changes are applied, how users and permissions work. That is why a small team can run a large internal system with it, and why handover to another team is usually painless.
The trade is that Django expects to own the request cycle. For heavily async, I/O-bound services, FastAPI fits better — and both live happily in the same product when the split is drawn deliberately.
When Django is the right call
When the product has an operations side with roles and approvals, when reporting matters, or when a small team must maintain a large system. For a pure async API surface with no admin, FastAPI is the better tool and we will say so.
Signals a Django project needs work
- operations run the business through a default admin nobody adapted;
- permission rules live in if-statements scattered across views;
- monthly reports are assembled by hand from exports;
- migrations are applied by one person who remembers the order;
- background jobs fail silently and nobody is paged.
Price
From $7,990
Timeline
3 weeks to first release
Payment
50/50 by milestone
Comparison
Django or FastAPI
Both are Python and both are right — for different halves of a product, sometimes in the same product.
Criterion
FastAPIDjango
DjangoFastAPI
Admin out of the box
Build it or buy a tool
Included, and worth adapting
Permissions and auth
Assembled from libraries
Built in and battle-tested
Async, I/O-heavy services
Designed for it
Supported, less natural
Typed API surface with generated docs
Native
Via DRF, with more setup
Migrations and ORM
SQLAlchemy and Alembic, assembled
Included and conventional
When it wins
Async gateways, ML inference services
Back-office systems, roles, reporting, moderation
Scope
What we build with it
Where this stack earns its place in a project, and what we would use instead if it did not.
Business systems with a real admin
Roles, approvals, audit trail, bulk actions and imports — the screens your operations team lives in.
APIs on Django REST Framework
Typed, documented endpoints for a mobile app or a separate front end, with permissions enforced server-side.
Reporting and exports
The numbers finance actually asks for, generated reliably rather than assembled by hand each month.
Background processing
Celery or equivalent for imports, notifications and scheduled work that must be re-runnable.
Fit
When it is the right call — and when it is not
The best stack is usually the one your team can maintain after we leave.
Right for
Products where the internal interface carries the value: operations, back office, marketplaces with moderation, systems with real permission rules.
Not right for
A pure API service with heavy async I/O and no admin: FastAPI is a better fit, and it is on our Python page.
Rates
$28–55/hour by role
Fixed builds
From $7,990
Discounts
Dedicated −10% · partners −15%
How we work
The admin panel as a product, not as scaffolding
The part that is specific to this stack rather than true of every project.
Why us
Why teams bring us in for this stack
Four things we can prove, not four adjectives.
The admin is designed, not accepted
List views, filters, bulk actions, imports with validation and an audit trail — the difference between a developer tool and something operations can use all day.
Permissions enforced server-side and tested
Rules in one place, covered by tests. Permission logic scattered through views is the most common security finding in Django audits.
Migrations that are safe to run
Reversible where possible, rehearsed on a copy, applied by CI rather than by the one person who remembers the order.
Your repository from commit one
Code, CI and infrastructure as code in your accounts, IP assigned at delivery with a documented chain of title.
Industries
What we buildfor your industry
Django runs the back offices we build for logistics, property and marketplaces — wherever moderation, roles and reporting are the product.
- IT companies and digital agencies
- Insurers and brokers
- Lenders and microfinance
- E-commerce
- Wholesale and distribution
- Manufacturing
- Freight and forwarding
- Clinics and medical centres
- Dental
- Car dealers and service centres
- EdTech
- Legal and consulting firms
- Equipment rental
- Real estate agencies
- Property developers
- Travel and events
- Beauty and wellness
- Construction and renovation
FAQ
Questions we get about this stack
Answered by the people who would do the work, not by a sales team.
Django or FastAPI for our project?
Django when there is an operations side with roles, approvals and reporting; FastAPI for async, I/O-heavy API services. Using both in one product is often the right answer.
How far can the Django admin be customised?
Far enough for most operations teams: custom list views, filters, inline editing, bulk actions, imports with preview and an audit trail. Past a guided multi-step workflow, a purpose-built screen is cheaper, and we will tell you where that line is.
DRF or GraphQL?
DRF by default — simpler to cache, monitor and hand over. GraphQL when clients genuinely need to shape their own queries.
Can you run migrations without downtime?
Usually: additive changes first, backfill, then the destructive step once nothing reads the old shape. Rehearsed on a copy before it touches production.
Do you set up Celery and background jobs?
Yes, with retries, dead letters and alerting. A background job that fails silently is worse than one that never ran.
Will you take over an existing Django project?
Yes, after a paid audit of the models, the permission logic, the migration history and the test coverage — the four places these systems hurt.
2–4×
faster on the code-writing share
in 3 weeks
from idea to MVP
230+
projects delivered
17 years
of engineering experience
Work
Work we can show you
SMARTWILL
Digital inheritance service (Web3)
AIRDEVELOPPA
Indoor air quality finder driven by sensor data
CAR5
Car-sharing app
APP.DENTAL
Cloud CRM for dental clinics
NEXORA
Warehouse and logistics management platform
As-built docs
Digital as-built documentation
EX211
Telegram Mini App for currency exchange
SMARTWILL
Digital inheritance service (Web3)
Need this stack with a senior review included?
Tell us what exists today — a green field, a legacy codebase, or a team that needs two more pairs of hands. We answer with a scope, a price and a date.
We do not take work on a stack we cannot review internally at senior level.