Django PostgreSQL Connection – 5 Easy Steps

When building web applications with Python, the Django framework plays a crucial role. By default, Django applications store data in a lightweight SQLite database. However, many developers prefer PostgreSQL over SQLite due to its advanced features and ability to handle complex databases more effectively.

PostgreSQL offers robust capabilities that can significantly boost production performance when integrated with Django. If you’re looking to configure a PostgreSQL database for your Django application, you’re in the right place! This guide walks you through the steps to seamlessly connect PostgreSQL to Django and optimize your application.

How to Establish Django PostgreSQL Connection?

Now that you have a clear vision of the benefits in your mind, let’s walk past the steps required to establish the Django PostgreSQL connection. But first, let’s state some prerequisites.

Step 1: Creating and Activating Virtual Environment

Open your Command Line Interface(CLI) and create a project directory using the following command. 

mkdir django-postgres

After creating the directory, the next step is to point towards the created directory with the following command.

cd django-postgres

In the Project development phase creating a virtual environment is a good practice. You can control the environment by segregating its environment from the rest of the systems.

The command to create a virtual environment is as follows:

python -m venv env;

The final step is to activate the virtual environment by running the command given below.

env/scripts/activate

Step 2: Installing Django and PostgreSQL

Now you have created a virtual environment for your project, so it’s time to install the required dependencies i.e., Django and PostgreSQL.

pip install django

The above command will install the latest version of Django to your project. 

Install the “psycopg2” module to get Python to operate with Postgres.

pip install psycopg2

Step 3: Creating Application in Django

Let’s create our first project, which will only have one project in our project directory but will let us add as many applications as we need.

django-admin startproject postgresTest

As a result of the above command, the “postgreTest” project folder will be generated in your project directory. You can verify the same in Visual Studio Editor.

Open up the project directory in Visual Studio and activate the virtual environment. Open the Visual Studio terminal and move to the project directory using the following command.

cd postgresTest

python manage.py startapp testdb

To launch your first app, use the following command.

Note: Don’t forget to mention your newly created application in the INSTALLED_APPS list in the settings.py file.

Kudos to you for creating your first application in Django!

Now, try running the server to ensure that everything is working correctly. Run the following command in the visual studio terminal.

python manage.py runserver

If everything is working correctly, you will get a link where your application is hosted on the local server. After clicking that link, you will land on the webpage shown below.

Step 4: Configuring Django Application Settings

Create a database named “test” in your Postgres server using pgAdmin4. 

It is now time to switch from the default database connection, i.e., SQLite3, to PostgreSQL in your Django project.

• Go to the settings.py file. 

By default, you will find the lines of code that are shown below. This code is configuring Django with the default database(SQLite3).

DATABASES = {
   'default': {
       'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
       'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
   }
}

You need to change the above settings to the parameters as shown below:

DATABASES = {
   'default': {
       'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
       'NAME': ‘<database_name>’,
       'USER': '<database_username>',
       'PASSWORD': '<password>',
       'HOST': '<database_hostname_or_ip>',
       'PORT': '<database_port>',
   }
}

Step 5: Testing Connection 

Run the following command to migrate all tables in our Django project to PostgreSQL.

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

You will get the output as shown below.

Congratulations!! You’ve successfully established the Django PostgreSQL connection.

Why is Django PostgreSQL Connection Useful?

The primary reasons to use Django PostgreSQL integration are mentioned below:

• Django includes a variety of data types that are exclusively compatible with PostgreSQL.
• Django provides django.contrib.postgres for PostgreSQL database operations.
• If you are creating a map-based application or storing geographical data, you must utilize PostgreSQL since it works with GeoDjango.
• Django supports the most functionality in PostgreSQL.
• Django offers crucial PostgreSQL-specific features such as aggregation functions, database constraints, form fields widgets, lookups, full-text search, Validators, and more.

We’ve seen how Django is the most capable web framework, and PostgreSQL is the most robust and dependable RDBMS. As a developer, you can leverage the versatility of PostgreSQL to work with almost any type of data and the unbeatable features of Django to develop fast and secure web applications.

Conclusion

In this guide, you have learned about PostgreSQL and Django briefly, their key features respectively, benefits of establishing a Django PostgreSQL connection. Moreover, you now have a detailed understanding of how to use PostgreSQL with your Django application.

Hopefully, you will try leveraging the Django PostgreSQL connection for your future web applications. Feel free to leave a comment below expressing your thoughts or recommendations.

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