Deploy Django in Europe

Django is easy to host and easy to host badly. HostStack builds the production shape for you: dependencies with pip, static files collected during the build, gunicorn in front of your WSGI app, and migrations run inside the new release before it takes traffic. It all runs in Helsinki, under a Danish company, which is the short answer to a European customer’s GDPR questionnaire.

What HostStack detects and builds

• Django is recognised from manage.py plus django in requirements.txt or pyproject.toml.
• Dependencies install with pip install -r requirements.txt, or pip install . when there is only a pyproject.toml.
• The build runs python manage.py collectstatic --noinput.
• gunicorn serves the WSGI module it finds — the first folder holding both wsgi.py and settings.py — with two workers, bound to the port in PORT. gunicorn itself must be in your requirements.
• The Python version comes from .python-version, runtime.txt, .tool-versions, Pipfile, requires-python or Poetry’s python dependency; with none, the newest release.

The dashboard pre-fills these commands when it detects Django, and the build applies them to any command left empty. If you write your own start command, as the file below does, keep $PORT in it: the platform routes to the port it injects.

hoststack.yaml for Django

Optional. Commit it next to your code and every deploy applies it; leave a key out and the service keeps its dashboard value. It configures a service that already exists — it never creates one. The full schema and hoststack validate are in the docs.

services:
  web:
    install:
      command: pip install -r requirements.txt
    build:
      command: python manage.py collectstatic --noinput
    start:
      command: gunicorn mysite.wsgi:application --bind 0.0.0.0:$PORT --workers 2
    healthCheck:
      path: /healthz/
    env:
      DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE: mysite.settings
      PYTHONUNBUFFERED: "1"

Replace mysite with your project package. The health-check path must answer 2xx or 3xx — add a tiny view for it, or drop the healthCheck block if your / does.

Database and environment variables

Linking a managed Postgres injects DATABASE_URL. Django does not read it on its own; dj-database-url turns it into the DATABASES setting in one line: DATABASES = {"default": dj_database_url.config(conn_max_age=600)}.

hoststack db create --project prj_... --name app-db --engine postgres --plan micro
hoststack db link db_... --service svc_...
hoststack env set svc_... DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=... --secret
hoststack services update svc_... --pre-deploy-command "python manage.py migrate --noinput"

Secrets belong on the service, not in the file — see environment variables and databases.

Deploy Django step by step

1. 1Add gunicorn, dj-database-url and whitenoise to requirements.txt, and read SECRET_KEY, DEBUG and ALLOWED_HOSTS from the environment.
2. 2Create a web service from your repository, in the dashboard or with hoststack services create --name web --type web_service --project prj_... --repo acme/app.
3. 3Commit the hoststack.yaml above with your project package in place of mysite.
4. 4Create a managed Postgres and link it; DATABASE_URL is injected on the next deploy.
5. 5Set python manage.py migrate --noinput as the pre-deploy command, so migrations run before the new release takes traffic.
6. 6Push to deploy, then add your domain and include it in ALLOWED_HOSTS.

Things that catch people out

Frequently asked questions

Other stacks

• Deploy Next.js
• Deploy Node.js
• Deploy Laravel
• Deploy Rails
• Deploy FastAPI
• Deploy Go

All guides are on the deploy guides index. Moving an existing Django app? The Heroku and Render guides have the cutover order.