You can still opt for function-based views almost 100% of the time. Though I'm a big fan of FBVs for "You see what you get", I've started to find that writing y

You can still opt for function-based views almost 100% of the time. Though I'm a big fan of FBVs for "You see what you get", I've started to find that writing your own, project-specific CBVs might pay off for speed + enforcing style in handling requests though. Fat models are most definitely a pain. Our solution has been to not rely on models for almost anything except for DB interaction, and instead have wrappers that act as business functions. So instead of Post.objects.create, you just write create_post. You still get ORM goodness for the most part, but your validation/creation layer is under control so you can apply your style. Overall, Django's defaults and even the fat model approach can work really well if you're writing a CMS, for example. And fortunately it's getting easier and easier to use only what you want. I hear you for the mutability of request objects. Mypy has helped us out a lot, but Django is pretty resistant to those.