Django From Zero

Django's pitch is "the web framework for perfectionists with deadlines," and it earns it by shipping with everything: an ORM, a database migration system, a templating engine, a forms library, a full authentication system, and - its most famous trick - an automatic admin interface generated from your data models. Where FastAPI hands you a sharp tool for APIs and lets you assemble the rest, Django hands you a whole workshop with strong opinions about where each tool goes. That "batteries-included, conventions everywhere" philosophy is the thing to understand first - once you think in Django's structure, the framework stops feeling enormous and starts feeling guided.

We build the mental model first the whole way: the project/app layout, the MTV request flow (Model → View → Template), the ORM that turns classes into tables, and the conventions that make the admin and auth "just appear." By the end you'll build a real, database-backed, authenticated web app and understand the structure holding it together.

📝 This teaches the framework. It assumes you know Python - classes, functions, decorators (Python From Zero). Helpful background: What a Database Is and What a Framework Even Is. Django code needs a project + database to run, so examples here are shown with the commands to run them yourself rather than executed on the page.

How to read this

Read in order - it builds one app (a small blog with posts and comments) and adds a Django subsystem per phase. Phases carry difficulty badges.

The phases

Part 1 - The Django way (🟢 Basic)

1. What Django Is & Your First Project 🟢 - batteries-included, the MTV pattern, projects vs apps, manage.py.
2. URLs & Views 🟢 - the URLconf, views, and how a request becomes a response.
3. Models & the ORM 🟢 - defining models, migrations, and querying without SQL.

Part 2 - Batteries included (🟡 Intermediate) 4. The Django Admin 🟡 - the auto-generated back-office that's Django's killer feature. 5. Templates & the MTV Pattern 🟡 - the template language, context, and inheritance. 6. Forms & Validation 🟡 - Form/ModelForm, validation, and CSRF protection. 7. The ORM, Deeper 🔴 - lazy QuerySets, relationships, the N+1 trap, and aggregation. 8. Users, Auth & Sessions 🔴 - the built-in auth system, login, permissions, and sessions.

Part 3 - APIs, testing & production (🟡 → 🟢) 9. Class-Based Views & Django REST Framework 🟡 - CBVs, generic views, and building APIs with DRF. 10. Testing & Project Structure 🟡 - Django's test framework, app organization, and settings. 11. Production & Where to Go Next 🟢 - deployment, static files, the security checklist, and what to build.

Django and FastAPI aren't rivals so much as different bets: Django for full web apps with an admin and server-rendered pages; FastAPI for lean, async APIs. Knowing both means picking the right one on purpose.