Here’s how to host a Django web-app on PythonAnywhere for free, which is pretty sweet if you ask me! In this ”guide”, I’m going to be using my portfolio/about me website as an example. You can find the source code here.
Creating the web-app itself 👨💻
First, you’ll need a fully functioning Django web-app (you won’t need to set up anything for production in Django though!). Next, you’ll also need to have your project on Github, and finally, make sure you have a requirements.txt file in your project. You can create this with pip freeze > requirements.txt.
Side note: You might be wondering why I’m using Django for a seemingly static website. I used Django because I chose to dynamically update my repositories using the Github REST API. I’d also like to add a blogging section at some point, so naturally, Django will help with that.
Alrighty, let’s get into it!
Starting with PythonAnywhere 🐍
Initially, you’ll want to make an account on PythonAnywhere. Once you create an account, you’ll be shown a basic dashboard. Click on “New Console”, create a new Bash console, and clone your project.
Then, create a virtual environment, and install Django and any other dependencies with pip install -r requirements.txt.
Important Note: Take note of the python version used to create the virtual environment. You’ll need that later!
Now, navigate back to the dashboard, and then to the Web tab. From there, create a new web-app, and choose the Manual Configuration option (not the Django option), and the version of python you used to create your virtual environment.
PythonAnywhere's file structure 📂
Before we go any further, I want to explain the file structure of PythonAnywhere. Initially, it was very confusing for me, so hopefully I can help you to avoid the struggle of trying to figure it out on your own!
If you navigate to the Files tab from the dashboard, you’ll see a list of directories. At this point in time, you should see a file structure that looks something like this:
- .cache/
- .local/
- .virtualenvs/
- MyDjangoWebApp/
- MyVirtualEnv/
Of course, MyDjangoWebApp and MyVirtualEnv will be called something else, but you get the point. By the way, all of these directories are subdirectories of home/MyUserName.
Contrary to what you may think, we actually don’t need to touch .cache, .local, or .virtualenvs! Those are just directories generated by PythonAnywhere. For what it’s worth, I would just completely ignore these directories for the rest of the setup. The only directories that we’ll be interacting with are the ones that you added, MyDjangoWebApp, and MyVirtualEnv.
More setup with PythonAnywhere 🔎
Now that you (hopefully) understand the file system a little bit more, we can continue. Once you’ve set up your web app, enter the name and path of the virtual environment in the Virtualenv section of the Web tab. You can also optionally enter the path to your code in the Code section.
WSGI file configuration 📄
After that, we’re going to edit our WSGI file. This is where it gets a little bit tricky. You won’t be editing your project's WSGI file, you’ll be editing PythonAnywhere’s. Go to the “Code” section, find the path to the WSGI configuration file, and open it.
Once you’re there, there’s going to be a lot of comments all over the place. You can delete everything except for the Django section. Now, make sure you uncomment everything in the Django section. It should look something like this when you’re done:
#+++++++++++ DJANGO +++++++++++
import os
import sys
# assuming your django settings file is at '/home/MyUserName/mysite/mysite/settings.py'
# and your manage.py is is at '/home/MyUserName/mysite/manage.py'
path = '/home/MyUserName/TOBECOMPLETED_1'
if path not in sys.path:
sys.path.append(path)
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = TOBECOMPLETED_2.settings'
# then:
from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
application = get_wsgi_application()
Now that I’ve properly confused you, let me explain. TOBECOMPLETED_1 should be replaced with your root project's name. TOBECOMPLETED_2 should be replaced not with your project’s name, but with the actual project directory inside your root project’s name.
If that sounds a little bit puzzling, let’s use my repository as an example. For instance, TOBECOMPLETED_1 would be set as personal-website, and TOBECOMPLETED_2 would be set as personal_website. Once you have this set up, make sure you save your file (top right), and make your way back to the Web tab.
Finishing the PythonAnywhere setup 👩🏭
You’re almost done! The last thing to do is set up your database (if you’re using one). While I haven’t set up one myself, here’s what PythonAnywhere says to do:
If, like most sites, your site uses a database, you'll need to set that up. Go to the
Consolestab, start a bash console, use cd to navigate to the directory where your Django project's manage.py lives, then run `./manage.py migrate”.
Now, return to the Web tab, and go to your web-app. Click the green Reload site icon. You should be up and running now! One last thing though, if you’re getting any errors or your site won’t load, check the log files!
Closing 🚪
I hope this little guide helped you set up your first Django web-app on PythonAnywhere! Feel free to check out my web-app hosted on PythonAnywhere: https://kureal.pythonanywhere.com/home/
If I made any mistakes, or you have any ideas/comments, please feel free to leave a comment!
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