How to Deploy a Django App to Production (2026 Guide)

To deploy a Django app to production you need five things: settings read from the environment (SECRET_KEY, DEBUG=False, ALLOWED_HOSTS, CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS), a WSGI server (Gunicorn), a production database read from DATABASE_URL with dj-database-url, static files served by WhiteNoise after collectstatic, and migrations that run before traffic switches. On DockHosting, Gunicorn and manage.py migrate are handled automatically, so the deploy itself is one command: dock deploy.

1. Production settings from the environment#

Hard-coded secrets and DEBUG = True are the two classic Django deploy mistakes. Read both from the environment:

# settings.py
import os
import dj_database_url
 
SECRET_KEY = os.environ["SECRET_KEY"]
DEBUG = os.environ.get("DEBUG", "False") == "True"
 
ALLOWED_HOSTS = os.environ.get("ALLOWED_HOSTS", "").split(",")
CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS = [f"https://{h}" for h in ALLOWED_HOSTS if h]
 
DATABASES = {"default": dj_database_url.config(conn_max_age=600)}

Generate a strong key once and store it as a secret:

python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(50))"

2. Static files with WhiteNoise#

With DEBUG=False, Django stops serving CSS and JavaScript (including the admin's). WhiteNoise serves them efficiently from your app:

# settings.py
MIDDLEWARE = [
    "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
    "whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware",  # right after SecurityMiddleware
    # …
]
 
STATIC_ROOT = BASE_DIR / "staticfiles"
STORAGES = {
    "default": {"BACKEND": "django.core.files.storage.FileSystemStorage"},
    "staticfiles": {"BACKEND": "whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage"},
}

Files have to be collected at build time. Add collectstatic to your project's build command in the dashboard:

python manage.py collectstatic --noinput

3. Dependencies#

# requirements.txt
django
gunicorn
dj-database-url
psycopg[binary]
whitenoise

Pin versions (pip freeze > requirements.txt) so production installs exactly what you tested. Poetry users can keep pyproject.toml: it's detected too.

4. Deploy#

curl -fsSL https://cli.dockhosting.dev/install.sh | sh   # Windows: irm https://cli.dockhosting.dev/install.ps1 | iex
dock login
dock deploy

What happens:

1. manage.py marks the project as Django, on Python 3.11 or 3.12.
2. Dependencies are installed with pip or Poetry.
3. Gunicorn workers are configured for you, so you don't need a Procfile.
4. python manage.py migrate runs automatically before traffic switches to the new release, so your schema is never behind your code.
5. You get https://<project>.dockhosting.cloud with automatic HTTPS.

Set SECRET_KEY and ALLOWED_HOSTS (for example myapp.dockhosting.cloud) in the project's environment variables.

5. Add PostgreSQL#

Create a managed PostgreSQL database in the dashboard and attach it to the project. DATABASE_URL is injected over a private network, and the dj_database_url.config() line above picks it up with no code changes. Create your admin user from your machine through public database access (Hobby and up), or with a data migration.

Need Redis for caching or Celery? Attach managed Redis and read REDIS_URL.

6. Production checklist#

Run python manage.py check --deploy locally. It flags most of these for you.

Troubleshooting#

• DisallowedHost: add the host to ALLOWED_HOSTS.
• CSRF failed on login or forms: add the https:// origin to CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS.
• 502 after deploy: see 8 causes of a 502 and how to fix them.

Prefer async APIs? See deploying FastAPI.