For only a small amount of objects the update_or_create works well, but if you're doing over a large collection it won't scale well. update_or_create always first runs a SELECT and thereafter an UPDATE.
for the_bar in bars:
updated_rows = SomeModel.objects.filter(bar=the_bar).update(foo=100)
if not updated_rows:
# if not exists, create new
SomeModel.objects.create(bar=the_bar, foo=100)
This will at best only run the first update-query, and only if it matched zero rows run another INSERT-query. Which will greatly increase your performance if you expect most of the rows to actually be existing.
It all comes down to your use case though. If you are expecting mostly inserts then perhaps the bulk_create() command could be an option.