Using Django Admin vs building a custom React admin panel for an online pharmacy website
I am working on an online pharmacy website with the following stack:
Backend: Django
Frontend (customer interface): React
Currently, I am thinking about how to implement the admin panel for managing the website.
My question is:
Is it reasonable to rely on the default Django Admin to manage things like:
products
orders
payments
general site management
Or is it better to build a custom admin dashboard using React and connect it to the Django backend via APIs?
Iam mainly interested in practical experience regarding:
ease of administration
flexibility and customization
admin user experience
handling orders and payment-related workflows
For those who have built similar systems, what approach worked better in practice?
Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated.
Keep Admin panel for internal management. It is very good for internal workflows:
manage products/categories/orders
bulk actions
Built in permissions
Django Admin starts to feel clunky only when you need to build some complex dashboards/analytics, or custom complex, non CRUD interfaces(like approve order -> approve insurance -> packaging). If you have this pages, just implement them on react
The Django Admin system might be somewhat complicated for some users, but still a solid choice for admin management if you don't need certain advanced tools and features (like approving something or heavy-duty, custom logic). For my own system, I made a styled, minimal admin panel for the managers, while keeping the Django admin panel to myself, mainly for the reason that it shows sensitive API key fields and irreversible actions, and the custom code needed to change such logic and polish things up, etc. is quite heavy. Also, the Django admin lacks some security features, especially with login. Overall, if you don't have much sensitive data or don't need custom logic, the default admin is fine, but making a separate one is my ultimate recommendation.