I really wanted to like Django more since I use python at $dayjob, but it seemed so far behind Laravel and Rails terms of DX and features. Also the ecosystem seemed fragmented and a lot of packages looked stale.
For example, I remember having to piece together a static files pipeline for Django with whitenoise, how is that not included by default?
Additionally the issues around the user model are bizarre, near the very end of the docs they tell you to override the user model to fix it. Wat.
Lastly Django templates felt super limiting, Livewire/Laravel and Hotwire/Rails gives you so much out of the box.
I ended up choosing Rails to start building side web apps, their move to SQLite-first and the whole “Solid” suite of tools is rad. Specifically Solid Queue is awesome! I noped out of Django when I saw how intense the docs for setting up celery were.
Hoping this spurs some activity in the Django-sphere, I would love if Django felt more complete like Rails!