Django admin was first released in 2005 and it has gone through a lot of changes since then. Still the admin interface looks clunky compared to most modern web interfaces.
Jacob Kaplan-Moss, one of the core-developers of Django estimated that it will cost 1 million dollars [1] to hire a team to rebuild admin interface from scratch. Until we get 1 million dollars to revamp the admin interface, let's look into alternate solutions.
- Use django admin with modern themes/skins. Packages like django-grappelli [2], django-suit [3] extend the existing admin interface and provide new skin,options to customize the UI etc.
- Use drop-in replacements for django admin. Packages like xadmin [4], django-admin2 [5] are a complete rewrite of django admin. Even though these packages come with lot of goodies and better defaults, they are no longer actively maintained.
- Use seperate django packages per task.
- Write our own custom admin interface.
We can start default admin interface or use any drop-in replacements for the admin. Even with this admin interface, we need to write custom views/reports based on business requirements.
In the next chapter, lets start with customizing admin interface.