🚀 Django Learning Journey – Day 14
Today was the BIG day — I tried deploying my first ever Django app!
The excitement was real… until the errors started pouring in 😄
🌐 Choosing a Free Tier
After researching deployment options, I chose Render.
Creating an account using GitHub was super smooth…
But everything after that was a rollercoaster 🚀🔥
💡 Important Lessons I Learned Today
1️⃣ The importance of requirements.txt
I finally understood why this file is crucial.
Your project might run locally — but the server needs to know exactly what to install.
2️⃣ Why people name their environment folder .env
Most tutorials use .env instead of venv or virt.
Today I learned the reason: Render automatically picks it up only if it starts with a dot!
Mine didn’t… so Render didn’t detect it 🤦♂️
3️⃣ Static files & the root directory
I had to configure a root directory for collecting static files and then run:
python manage.py collectstatic --noinput
I don’t fully understand what --noinput does yet…
But it made the build succeed, so I’ll take the win 🤣
4️⃣ Gunicorn for deployment
Installed gunicorn and updated the start command:
gunicorn todo_app.wsgi:application --bind 0.0.0.0:$PORT
This finally got the app very close to going live.
🎉 The App Actually Went Live!!
Here’s the URL I got on Render:
🌐 https://to-do-list-django-4yp3.onrender.com
I clicked with excitement…
and then…
❌ “DisallowedHost at /”
My jaw dropped.
Locally everything works perfectly — but on the cloud? Not so much.
This was such an important reality check:
“Just because it works on your machine doesn't mean it works on the server.”
I’m now learning why Django requires updating ALLOWED_HOSTS and what a server actually is.
🤝 I Need Some Help
If you’ve deployed Django apps multiple times:
How do you fix this DisallowedHost issue cleanly?
What helped you understand how servers work without getting intimidated?
What shocked you during your first deployment attempt?
🥹 Final Thoughts
Even though today was full of errors…
Seeing my project almost live made me speechless.
The learning curve is steep — but incredibly rewarding.
Thank you all for being part of this journey 🙏
Tomorrow, I’ll tackle the deployment issues again and get this app properly LIVE!
Failed yet proud : https://to-do-list-django-4yp3.onrender.com
Django #Render #WebDevelopment #Python #Deployment #LearningInPublic #100DaysOfCode
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