Model factories (and tools like factory_boy or model_mommy) is a better alternative.
According to Carl Mayer's slides on "Testing and Django", fixtures are:
- Hard to maintain and update.
- Increase test interdependence.
- Slow to load.
It's better to use model factories, why?
- Test data local to test code (explicit).
- Easy to maintain.
- Don't create any data you don't need for that test.
- Works great even for large/complex test data sets (helper functions).
Personally, I've used factory_boy for testing in almost every django project. It's worth trying, take a look.
Also, see: