Django API Template

A clean, production-ready Django API boilerplate powered by Docker, PostgreSQL, and localisation support.

This project is designed as a starting point for RESTful backend APIs, making it easy to build, extend, and deploy to Azure via Terraform.

• Django 5.2.1 LTS with optional PostGIS backend support
• Docker Compose for isolated, repeatable environments
• Multi-language support via django-modeltranslation
• Admin UI pre-configured and styled
• Token-based authentication (rest_framework.authtoken)
• REST API tooling with Django REST Framework
• Ready for media handling, static file collection, and deployment

git clone https://github.com/imre/django-api.git
cd django-api

Copy .env.example to .env and adjust values as needed:

cp .env.example .env

This file is used by both Django and Docker Compose.

docker-compose up --build -d

This will start:

• api: Django backend
• db: PostgreSQL with PostGIS

You can now access:

• Django Admin: http://localhost:8000/admin

docker-compose exec api python manage.py makemigrations
docker-compose exec api python manage.py migrate
docker-compose exec api python manage.py createsuperuser

The project uses django-modeltranslation to handle multilingual content.

You’ll see fields like:

Title [en]:
Title [ar]:
Title [fr]:

These are auto-generated and hooked into the admin interface. Add translations as needed in the settings.py file.

• All backend code lives under /backend
• Media is stored in /media
• Static files are collected into /staticfiles via WhiteNoise
• Logs output to Docker console

Authentication via Token:

POST /api-token-auth/

Blog endpoint (example model):

GET /api/posts/

This template is deployment-ready. For production:

• Use Gunicorn or Uvicorn
• Connect to external Postgres (Azure, AWS RDS, etc)
• Set DEBUG=0 (0 = False)
• Use django-environ for environment settings if scaling further

This is not a bloated monolith. It’s built for speed, clarity, and actual use:

• Start fast with sensible defaults
• Scale up cleanly with migrations, Docker, and localisation
• Avoid framework lock-in swap pieces as needed, Django APIs can be used with your framework of chocie.

MIT, do what you want, but give credit.
See License file for more information.

Created by Imre Draskovits, designed to be pragmatic, durable, and usable from day one.
Feel free to contact me or open an issue if you have any questions getting started.