Use SQLite for Django locally and Postgres on server - django

Question

I am starting with Django development as a hobby project. So far I have happily worked with SQLite, both in development (i.e. with py manage.py runserver) and in deployment (on Nginx + uWSGI). Now I would also like to learn to use a more robust PostgreSQL database. However, if possible, I would like to skip installing it locally, to avoid installing Postgres on Windows.
I was wondering if it was possible, by means of Django, to use SQLite whenever I use the built-in server and Postgres in deployment, without changing the project code. Couldn't find how to do it.
I can use a workaround and make my deployment procedure change the settings on server each time I deploy. But that's kind of a hack.

Answer 1

You could split your settings.py in multiple settings file e.g.
[projectname]/
├── [projectname]/
│ ├── __init__.py
│ ├── settings/
│ │ │── base.py
│ │ │── development.py
│ │ │── production.py
│ ├── urls.py
│ └── wsgi.py
└── manage.py
your base.py includes all code from your current settings.py. specify the different databases in your development.py(sqlite3) and in your production.py (postgresql) and import the base.py in each
from .base import *
Last but not least you'll have to tell django which file it should use. Add
export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE="projectname.settings.development"
to your postactivate of your virtualenv on your development server and
export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE="projectname.settings.production"
on your production server. Don't forget to
unset DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
in your predeactivate.
More infos are here: http://www.marinamele.com/taskbuster-django-tutorial/settings-different-environments-version-control
btw. a great tutorial with a lot of best practices

Answer 2

replace settings.py with
settings/
│── __init__.py
│── base.py
│── development.py
│── production.py
in __init__.py
import os
app_stage = os.environ.get('DJANGO_APP_STAGE', 'dev')
if app_stage == 'prod':
from .production import *
else:
from .development import *
And finally when you launch app for production, make sure you set env DJANGO_APP_STAGE='prod'
Create your database settings in respective files and you are good to go.

Answer 3

Very late reply, but I hope this helps someone in the future.
I found this article on Digital Ocean that has the database option split happening in one settings file. https://docs.digitalocean.com/tutorials/app-deploy-django-app/#configuring-database-access
Makes use of a DEVELOPMENT_MODE system environment variable to split settings. They also included a check to prevent a connection when a command is run like collectstatic.
settings.py file:
import os
import sys
import dj_database_url
DEVELOPMENT_MODE = os.getenv("DEVELOPMENT_MODE", "False") == "True"
if DEVELOPMENT_MODE is True:
DATABASES = {
"default": {
"ENGINE": "django.db.backends.sqlite3",
"NAME": os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "db.sqlite3"),
}
}
elif len(sys.argv) > 0 and sys.argv[1] != 'collectstatic':
if os.getenv("DATABASE_URL", None) is None:
raise Exception("DATABASE_URL environment variable not defined")
DATABASES = {
"default": dj_database_url.parse(os.environ.get("DATABASE_URL")),
}
Note: This is also making use of the Django Database URL package, but you could easily adapt for separated database arguments.