How to set up Postgres in your Django project

Sqlite3 is the default Django Database Engine, but it is very light-weight.
I am going to show you how to set up and use Postgres DB in your project. Let's get started!

Steps

1. Install and configure Postgres.
2. Install dependencies.
3. Set it up in our Django project.

1. Install and configure Postgres.

Download Postgres here for your operating system.

Install it.
If you run into problems, you can check detailed instructions for your operating system here.
Start your Postgres server/ db.

2. Install dependencies

In your work environment, install psycopg2 using this command: pip install psycopg2

3.Set it up in your Django Project

Make sure that your Postgres server/db is running.
Click here if you don't know how.

Navigate to your project's settings.py file, and replace the DATABASE dictionary with the following:

#myProject/settings.py

...

DATABASES = {

    'default': {

        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',

        'NAME': ‘<db_name>’,

        'USER': '<db_username>',

        'PASSWORD': '<password>',

        'HOST': '<db_host>',

        'PORT': '<db_port>',

    }

}

...

Use your host as 'localhost' and your port as 5432 (or to whichever port you changed to during configuration).

You can now migrate your database using ./manage.py migrate or python manage.py migrate.
Your Django Project is now using Postgres as its database.