Deployment

The wsgi.py and asgi.py files created by startproject each expose an application object. For mostly synchronous views, use a WSGI server such as Gunicorn. If you need async views or WebSockets (Django Channels), use an ASGI server such as Uvicorn or Daphne.

python -m pip install gunicorn uvicorn

# WSGI with four worker processes
gunicorn mysite.wsgi --workers 4 --bind 127.0.0.1:8000

# ASGI with Uvicorn on its own
uvicorn mysite.asgi:application --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000 --workers 4

Start with a worker count based on your CPU cores and tune it under real load. Run the server under a process manager such as systemd, Supervisor or a container orchestrator, so it restarts after a crash.

Reverse proxy

Put a reverse proxy such as Nginx in front of the application server. The proxy terminates TLS, serves static files and buffers slow clients, and forwards only dynamic requests to Gunicorn.

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name example.com;

    location /static/ {
        alias /srv/mysite/staticfiles/;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Deploying with containers

Containers give every server an identical environment. Keep secrets out of the image and pass them in as environment variables at run time.

FROM python:3-slim

ENV PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
WORKDIR /app

COPY requirements.txt .
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

COPY . .
RUN DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=build-only python manage.py collectstatic --noinput

CMD ["gunicorn", "mysite.wsgi", "--bind", "0.0.0.0:8000", "--workers", "4"]

Run migrations once as a deployment step, not while building the image. In production, collect errors through the LOGGING setting and get notified about exceptions via ADMINS or a service such as Sentry.

Summary

• Set DEBUG = False, a secret SECRET_KEY and ALLOWED_HOSTS, then verify with check --deploy.
• Gather static files with collectstatic and serve them from a web server or WhiteNoise.
• Run the app with Gunicorn (WSGI) or Uvicorn (ASGI) behind a reverse proxy such as Nginx.
• Run migrations as part of the deployment and set up logging and error reporting.

Official documentation

• Deployment checklist: production settings to review
• How to deploy Django: WSGI and ASGI deployment guides
• How to manage static files: working with static files
• Settings reference: every available setting
• Django documentation: the documentation home page