What the difference between using Django redirect and HttpResponseRedirect?

There is a difference between the two:

In the case of HttpResponseRedirect the first argument can only be a url.

redirect which will ultimately return a HttpResponseRedirect can accept a model, view, or url as it's "to" argument. So it is a little more flexible in what it can "redirect" to.

I also like how redirect is shorter. So I'd use redirect over HttpResponseRedirect.

Both are fine to use though.

From documentation -

redirect(to[, permanent=False], *args, **kwargs) Returns an HttpResponseRedirect to the appropriate URL for the arguments passed.

from the definition its the same. Thats what shortcuts are for. Both are one and the same.

shortcuts generally are written one level above the actual API's. So redirect encapsulates HttpResponseRedirect and HttpResponsePermanentRedirect with the arg permanent=False.

There is no major downside to using HttpResponseRedirect over redirect. Hope this clears it.