[Answer]-Django: using custom backend or admin for staff users?

My suggestion is: You should try the existing django admin once. Unless you have highly customised requirement, it should work.

I’m guessing you want to build a portal where different users will update/add their own data and shouldn’t be able to peek into other’s data, something like an inventory management system.

• Django admin has provisions for model-level permissions, you’ll have to tweak it to administer object level permission inside a model.
• You yourself (the admin) can be superuser, who can see everyone’s data and other models which are not open to other guys.

Using groups and permissions, I think it can be achieved and will scale.

This more a phylosofical question than a technical question. Using generic CBVs is pretty easy to implement a custom backend, also the admin interface is really powerful and customizable.

I guess when you say “but I would like to scale the system so anyone could log_in” you are talking about business employees so I guess I’d use admin interface, but it depends on the number of employees the business has.

Answering in common, django-admin is good in case you totally trust your staff members. Yes, you can customize it for almost any functionality needed, but it has some surprises and built-in permission system is a bit weird.

So, in your case custom backend looks much cheaper on long distance.

Anyway, you can give django-admin a try. If you won’t find customization and user priveleges too hackish (as I do) – why not.