The original article was written by SoftFormance https://www.softformance.com/blog/30-python-apps/
I started as a newbie web developer in 2005. More than a decade has passed, and I’ve tried many different coding languages.
We’ve used a few different web and mobile frameworks in our agency, but we never changed the primary programming language.
We always used Python for the backend here at SoftFormance and didn’t regret it once.
In this article, we demonstrated all the pros and cons of using Python for web applications development.
And today, we’d like to continue exploring Python’s use in the real world.
So, we prepared for you the most comprehensive list of web apps and popular software built with Python language.
You’ll be surprised to learn how many modern businesses and organizations use Python as their go-to language.
And we went an extra mile with our team and grouped these projects into a couple of buckets:
- Big Five Companies
- Streaming services
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Web platforms
- Social media networks
- Game industry
- Science
- Graphics and Design So enjoy!
Big Five Companies
Also known as Big Tech or Tech Giants. These are the companies everyone knows about (or at least recognize their logo), from a retired librarian to a child in a kindergarten.
And three out of five use Python to build and run their systems.
Google needs no introductions because it’s the most popular search engine in the world. Google has more than 75% of the market share.
When choosing a programming language, the company’s engineers decided to use Python where they could and C++ where they must.
Why? Because of Python’s readability and maintainability. It allows Google to carry out a variety of its projects successfully.
Amazon
This e-commerce, cloud computing, and entertainment giant also benefit from Python.
The programming language is used for building the recommendation engine. The machine learning system written in Python works on a Hadoop database. Because Python scales so well, it is one of the best technologies for extensive data analysis.
In 2021, Facebook had nearly 3 billion active users monthly. It’s hard even to imagine this number, but what about this: it’s as if all people from 6 Northern American continents used Facebook. Impressive, huh?
The company is huge, as well as its tech stack. Facebook uses many programming languages and technologies, and Python is one of them. In particular, the company claims that Python was used to build about 21% of Facebook’s infrastructure’s codebase.
What exactly is Python incorporated for? It allows Facebook users to upload pictures, posts and update statuses. So every time you post a new photo with your dog or update your audience about a recent career change, thank Facebook for that.
Streaming services
Streaming services were gaining popularity lately, but the outbreak of COVID-19 gave them a boost. Stuck in their homes, people had nothing better to do than binge-watch their favorite shows or listen to their favorite albums on repeat.
And it turns out that the giants in the streaming services industry, Spotify and Netflix, also use Python.
Spotify
With Spotify, you can instantly access tons of tracks and albums with virtually no buffering delay. The platform was released in 2008 and has reached more than 75 million paid subscribers in less than two decades.
Spotify’s website is built using WordPress, but the mobile app is built with Python. Also, Spotify’s engineers used it to code the app’s backend. Specifically, the app’s backend consists of many interdependent services connected by their messaging protocol. And around 80% of those services are written in Python.
Netflix
Netflix became the leading internet television network with a coverage of 40 countries and more than 33 million members. In total, the service is used for more than one billion hours of TV shows every month. That also includes Netflix’s own production.
No doubt that Netflix developers have the best possible technology at their disposal. And most of them use Python because of its rich batteries-includes the standard library. Others also highlight Python’s clean and expressive syntax, extensive developer community, and abundance of third-party libraries used to solve different problems.
Software as a Service
A wide range of SaaS companies use Python, from small-scale to large-scale ones, and use its different features to their advantage. Most of the following companies chose Python due to its scalability feature, which allowed them to manage the rapid growth of their businesses.
Dropbox
I’ll bet my phone on the fact that you keep all your stuff, from photos and videos to files and docs on Dropbox. The company rapidly developed from 2000 users to 200 million, and Python ensured a smooth scaling.
In fact, the company managed to hire the man who created Python, Guido van Rossum who worked at Google before. He transitioned to Dropbox and made sure they had the most efficient stack in the whole industry.
Uber
Every day people use Uber to get to places more than 15 million times. Uber’s developers use those languages: Python, Node.js, Go, and Java.
The company started with two languages: Node.js for the Marketplace team, while Python was used for the rest of the company. These two languages still stay primary at the company today.
Lyft
Lyft is a rapidly-growing rideshare organization in the US, available in over 200 cities. People share more than 14 million rides per month through the company. And it is known that the company is a big fan of the Python language. For instance, they use SciPy to fight fraud or Salt for provision hosts.
Instacart
Instacart is a US company founded in 2012 specializing in grocery delivery and pick-up services. With more than 500,000 users and 2 million in revenue, it’s safe to say this is one of the biggest grocery delivery apps in the US.
Instacart uses such Python libraries as Pandas and NumPy. In the case of demand forecasting, they have Python that does the estimates, reads all the data, comes up with how many shoppers they’re going to need for the next week or two, and then writes those values and estimates.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey processes nearly 1 million survey responses every day. At first, it was written with C# but later rewritten in Python. The reason to turn to Python was its simplicity, wide range of libraries that allowed building a web app much faster. Additionally, it made it easier to work with deployment, set unit testing, and so on. Not talking about developers who preferred Python to other languages, which was crucial in recruiting new specialists.
Bitly
Bitly is a URL shortening company that was established in 2008. Based and held in New York City, the service shortens over 600 million links every month, for various purposes, from social networking to SMS and email mailing lists.
Being the most used URL shortener globally, Bitly was created in the first place due to Python web development. Now, it uses Python for link management.
Web platforms
From well-established web platforms to new ones, you can find Python use in most of them. Python and its frameworks allow them to extend their functionality, test new features, and create new add-ons.
IBM
IBM used to be a tech powerhouse and remains in many ways still. The company had a crucial impact on the tech landscape for decades. So how is it related to Python? It is related in many ways. For example, you can deploy a Python web server on IBM Bluemix. Also, IBM even used to publish free Python tutorials.
If IBM, the ultimate tech giant, uses Python, it means that you should consider it too.
Mozilla
Who doesn’t know Mozilla Firefox, right? Well, a lot of people don’t know that Python is related to the success of this browser.
At first, developers built Mozilla Firefox on PHP+CakePHP. However, as the company developed, those languages couldn’t handle millions of searches on a monthly basis. So, the developers moved Mozilla to Python+Django. More specifically, Mozilla-central has over 35000 Python files with over 230 thousand lines of code.
Today, the company uses Python for implementing such tasks as building the system, command-line tooling, test harnesses, and CI configuration. Meanwhile, Django is used for Mozilla’s support site and browser add-ons.
BitTorrent
BitTorrent is a known name in the area of huge databases of media, knowledge, and content. This program is supported through ads and developed by Bram Cohen and Rainberry, Inc. It is used to upload and download files.
BitTorrent’s creation and development were made with the help of Python. You wouldn’t be able to access various materials and lectures and easily download them if it weren’t for Python in BitTorrent’s development.
BitBucket
BitBucket is a web-based hosting service that is mainly used for source code and a wide range of development projects. Its users’ base accounts for over 10 million registered users as well as 28 million repositories.
According to BuiltWith, nearly 2 thousand websites are using the services of BitBucket. Needless to say, the service is written in Python, more specifically, using the Django web framework.
Social media networks
One of the most needed features for social media networks is scalability due to their constant and rapid development. Python has excellent scalability potential and many other features that allow social media platforms to handle large amounts of users.
In 2021, nearly 1 billion people used Instagram. Instagram started using Python back in 2010, and it took only two weeks for them to develop and launch an app with the Django framework. 11 years later, the company still uses the Django framework to scale their projects.
Today, Instagram features the world’s largest deployment of the Django web framework, which is written entirely in Python.
Youtube
With over 2 billion logged-in users every month, Youtube is among the social media platforms’ champions. And this platform was written almost exclusively in Python. The users get the interactive experience thanks to various features and libraries of the Python language. Moreover, developers coded the platform to make the process of uploading, downloading, and sharing videos quite easy.
More than 330 million users visit Reddit every month. The company’s founders turned to Python due to its two main benefits. Firstly, the vast number of libraries allows finding the code for pretty much anything quickly. Secondly, the simplicity and accessibility of coding in Python allowed the founders to control the process themselves. In addition, its apparent structure allows smooth work and coding.
Quora
The next one is Quora, one of the biggest question-and-answer websites mainly used by professionals.
In the late 2000s, the Quora team was choosing between several coding languages but went with Python due to its development speed. The company needed to launch its MVP as fast as possible, and there was no better choice than Python.
Quora’s developers were particularly happy to transition to Python from other languages, especially PHP.
Pinterest is a site created for sharing pictures and photos of users’ hobbies and interests. It has over 478 million active users monthly.
Pinterest developers used Python when they were building the platform in 2009-2010 because it was the technology they knew. Specifically, the developers used Python and heavily-modified Django at the application layer.
Disqus
Disqus makes your life easier if you deal with the comments a lot. It moderates the content and helps in managing the comments. Disqus’s community consists of more than 2 billion users monthly in more than 190 countries. And some more impressive statistics: Disqus supports over 70 languages and generates over 50 million comments every month.
Python comes in handy when it involves security features. For example, it allows multiple sign-ins and notifications that keep the Disqus users in the loop.
The Onion
The Onion is a famous online publication specializing in local, national, and international news. Today, it stays among the most-read newspapers around the globe.
The role of Python in this all is to make the Onion website up and running. All publications, features, and designs highly rely on the Django framework.
Game industry
The video game industry is among the leading industries worldwide in terms of revenue. It gains about 140 billion dollars annually, and the numbers are only growing. Today, no one codes a game from scratch. Instead, most games are developed using a wide range of development tools.
Game developers favor Python because of its simplicity, readability, and extensive library support.
Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2 was a first-person shooter video game developed in 2005. Its developers used Python to create the essential elements of the gameplay, such as scorekeeping and team balancing. Despite being shut down in 2014, it had a vast community of gamers, and it inspired the creation of many other games.
Star Trek Bridge Commander
Star Trek: Bridge Commander was released in 2002. Totally Games company developed it for Microsoft Windows. The game is set in the universe of Star Trek and is a space combat simulation at its core.
Python was used here as a mission scripting language and for many other features.
Civilization 4
Civilization 4 is the fourth installment of the Civilization series that Soreh Johnson designed. It was released in 2005 by video game development studio Firaxis Games.
The brand new feature of this release was the inner logic, including AI, implemented with the help of Python. The game has a language interpreter installed in the engine. Besides, the developers made the interface exposed, allowing the modding community to discover it and use it to their advantage.
Science
In the science field, Python is used by such companies as NASA or the National Weather Service. Why? Because it allows crafting and developing technologies that require great precision and accuracy.
NASA
Python was used as the standard scripting language in the Johnson Space Center in the Integrated Planning System. Also, Python served as one of the modern tools used to replace the older tools, written either in Perl or shell dialects.
With its help, Johnson Space Center worked on developing a set of tools that would assist shuttle pre-mission planning. Additionally, Python was used in the Mission Control Center, to perform auxiliary processing integrated with a user interface shell.
National Weather Service
National Weather Service is a US company that provides weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and many other weather-related services both to the public and private organizations. In addition, it aims to inform the public about weather-related events for protection, safety, and general information.
The organization used Python to build the central computer system that includes 120 offices located all over the country. The system was developed to create maps, write forecasts, issue warnings, and perform most weather-related tasks.
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)
Environmental Systems Research Institute is a leading company in the Geographic Information Systems area. ESRI is an international supplier of geographic information system software, web GIS, and geodatabase management applications.
The company used Python as a scripting language and also distributed the language’s runtime. Additionally, ESRI released an open-source package called AVPython, the Python interface library used for its products.
Graphics and Design
Several graphics and design companies, such as Industrial Light and Magic and Walt Disney Feature Animation, use Python and its frameworks. It allows expanding the animation variety and simplifying the production pipeline quickly and efficiently.
Industrial Light and Magic
Founded in 1975, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) is the special effects powerhouse. Originally, it was created by George Lucas to produce visual effects for Star Wars.
After decades, Industrial Light and Magic is the leading company in the field of visual effects, proving their excellence by winning countless awards for their movie and commercial projects.
Python is a go-to language in multiple facets of their work. For instance, developers use Python to track and audit pipeline functionality, maintaining a database of every single image produced for every project.
As more and more ILM’s programs involved Python use, it allowed creating a unified toolset, leading to a more efficient production pipeline.
Walt Disney Feature Animation
Who doesn’t know a clip of a mouse driving a boat, whistling a melody, and just being cool? That’s the intro of one of the most popular animation companies, Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Since the day this American company was founded, the studio has produced more than 50 feature films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. Not to mention hundreds of short films.
Walt Disney Feature Animation applies Python frameworks to add scriptability to their animation production system.
Sum Up
Small and huge companies, private and governmental organizations use Python.
And it’s no wonder because Python is easy to use, scalable, and understandable. Whatever your project needs are, Python almost surely is the right decision.
Python already has the most applicable framework and tons of libraries to rely on, whether it’s a simple web app or complex machine learning and data science project.
With Python, we’ve built 200+ projects and have learned all the ins and outs of this language.
So if you want to start a project with Python, but are in doubt, don’t hesitate to contact us!
We’ll be glad to answer any questions of yours and provide our perspective and expertise.
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