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Modern Django Starter

A CLI tool that scaffolds Django 6.1 projects with modern tooling pre-wired and production-ready — HTMX, AlpineJS, TailwindCSS & DaisyUI, docker-allauth authentication, Docker, PostgreSQL, Django REST Framework, Celery, Sentry, Stripe, and cloud integrations.

PyPI version Python CI

  • One command, one project

    Generate a complete, working Django project in seconds — no boilerplate copying.

  • Modern frontend, zero build pain

    HTMX and AlpineJS included. Optionally wire up Vite, webpack, or Parcel.

  • Pick your stack

    PostgreSQL, DRF, Celery, Sentry, Stripe, cloud storage, email providers — all optional.

  • Docker-friendly

    Get a production-grade Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml out of the box.

  • API-first mode

    Generate a pure DRF backend with JWT auth, CORS, and Swagger docs via --api-only.

  • CI included

    Optionally scaffold GitHub Actions (or GitLab, Travis, CircleCI) workflows.

Quick start

Requires Python 3.12+.

# uv (recommended)
uv tool install modern-django-starter

# or pip
pip install modern-django-starter

Then generate a project:

modern-django-starter create my_project

You'll be guided through a few questions (Docker, PostgreSQL, DRF, Celery, Stripe, and more). When you're done, you have a working Django app:

cd my_project
docker compose up -d                  # with Docker
docker compose exec web python manage.py migrate

or without Docker:

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate              # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver

Open http://localhost:8000 and you're up and running.

API-only?

Prefer a headless backend? See API-Only Projects for the --api-only mode.

What you get

  • Django 6.1 — split settings (base, development, production)
  • HTMX + AlpineJS — interactive pages without a JS framework
  • TailwindCSS + DaisyUI — utility-first styling with ready components
  • django-allauth — email-based signup/login wired to the templates
  • Optional — Docker, PostgreSQL, DRF, Celery, Sentry, Stripe, cloud storage, email providers, frontend build pipeline, and CI workflows

Installing the generated project requirements

Each generated project ships a requirements/ directory split into base.txt, development.txt, and production.txt. requirements.txt pulls in the development set by default:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Next steps