🚀 Day 10: Django Deployment – Beginner’s Web Dev Series

Welcome to the final day (Day 10) of your Django web development journey!

Today, we’ll make your project publicly accessible on the internet by deploying it to Render.com, a free and beginner-friendly platform for hosting Django apps.

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📍 What You’ll Learn

1. Preparing your Django app for production

2. Creating requirements.txt with Gunicorn

3. Setting up environment variables with python-decouple

4. Using collectstatic for static file handling

5. Connecting your GitHub repo to Render

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🔧 1. Prepare Your Project for Deployment

Install Gunicorn for production-ready server handling:

pip install gunicorn

Then freeze dependencies:

pip freeze > requirements.txt

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🛠️ 2. Use python-decouple for Environment Variables

Install it:

pip install python-decouple

Update settings.py:

from decouple import config

SECRET_KEY = config("SECRET_KEY")
DEBUG = config("DEBUG", cast=bool, default=False)
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ["*"]

Create .env :

SECRET_KEY=your-secret
DEBUG=False

And also create .env.example:

DEBUG=False
SECRET_KEY=changeme

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⚙️ 3. Update settings.py, urls.py for Static, Media Files

# settings.py
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static/')

MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media/')

# urls.py
urlpatterns += static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)
urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

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📁 4. Add .gitignore

*.pyc
__pycache__/
.env
staticfiles/
db.sqlite3

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🔃 5. Add collectstatic to Your Flow

Make sure this is ready in your production setup:

python manage.py collectstatic

This command copies all static files to STATIC_ROOT, so they can be served in production.

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🛠️ 6. Push to GitHub

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Prepare for Render deployment"
git remote add origin https://github.com/yourusername/yourproject.git
git push -u origin main

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🌐 7. Deploy on Render

1. Visit https://render.com

2. Create a free account

3. Click New Web Service

4. Connect your GitHub repo

5. Select the repo

6. Wait for it to build and deploy (~3–5 mins)

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✅ Task for Day 10

• Create a .env, .env.example, and requirements.txt

• Add Gunicorn to the project

• Push your code to GitHub

• Deploy to Render

• Share your live link with your team/community!

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🏁 You Did It!

🎉 Congratulations on completing the 10-Day Django Beginner Series!

You now know how to:

• Build dynamic views and templates

• Work with models and forms

• Handle authentication

• Build RESTful APIs

• And deploy your Django app to the web

🧑‍💻 Beginner Resources

1. Official Django Documentation

• 📚 https://docs.djangoproject.com

• Best place to learn the right way

• Check out the official tutorial

2. MDN Django Tutorial (by Mozilla)

• 🔗 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Server-side/Django

• Teaches Django through a practical "Library Catalog" app

3. Real Python Django Series

• 🔗 https://realpython.com/tutorials/django/

• Clear, beginner-to-advanced tutorials with great examples

4. Django for Beginners Book (by William S. Vincent)

• 🔗 https://djangoforbeginners.com/

• Great for beginners building real-world projects step-by-step

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