Cookiecutter Django – Production-Ready Django Boilerplate

This MVP is a battle-tested boilerplate based on cookiecutter-django – a framework for jumpstarting production-ready Django projects quickly. Instead of spending days wiring up settings, auth, Docker and CI, you answer a few prompts and get a fully structured Django app that follows modern best practices.

What you get

✅ Django 5.x project generated via Cookiecutter
✅ Works with modern Python 3.x and PostgreSQL by default
✅ Custom user model & authentication (via django-allauth) out of the box
✅ Environment-driven settings using 12-Factor style configuration (django-environ)
✅ Opinionated dev & production settings (debug, security, static/media, logging, etc.)
✅ Optional Docker / docker-compose setup for dev and production with Traefik & Let’s Encrypt
✅ Email integration via Anymail (Mailgun / SES / other providers)
✅ Optional Celery + Flower for background jobs
✅ Optional Sentry for error tracking
✅ Pre-configured pre-commit hooks, linters and formatting

This boilerplate is ideal if you want to launch a serious Django application without wasting time on plumbing.

Ideal use cases

Use this MVP when you want to:

Build SaaS products on Django quickly
Ship internal tools / dashboards / admin apps
Create APIs with DRF and a simple frontend
Launch MVPs that need sign-up, login, emails and basic payments/integrations later
Standardise your team’s Django project structure

Tech stack

Core

Language: Python 3
Framework: Django 5.x
Database: PostgreSQL (configurable version; 14–17 supported)
ORM: Django ORM
Auth: django-allauth (custom user model)

Infrastructure & tooling

Configuration: django-environ + 12-Factor style env vars :
Containers: Docker + docker-compose for dev & prod (optional)
Reverse proxy / SSL: Traefik + Let’s Encrypt (optional)
CI / CD: GitHub Actions / other CI templates available
Code quality: pre-commit, Black, isort, flake8, tests with unittest or pytest

Optional integrations

(You can toggle these when running Cookiecutter)

API: Django REST Framework (DRF)
Background jobs: Celery + Flower
Error tracking: Sentry
Email: Anymail with providers like Mailgun, SES, etc.
Storage: Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Storage or Whitenoise/nginx for static/media
Deployment: Heroku & PythonAnywhere guides included

How it works

Install Cookiecutter
```
uv tool install "cookiecutter>=1.7.0"
```

Generate a new project

uvx cookiecutter https://github.com/cookiecutter/cookiecutter-django

Answer the prompts

You’ll choose things like:
- Project name & slug
- PostgreSQL version
- Cloud provider (AWS / GCP / None)
- Mail provider (Mailgun, SES, etc.)
- Whether to enable DRF, Celery, Sentry, Docker, Heroku, etc.
Install requirements & run
- Install Python deps
- Run migrations
- Start the dev server or docker-compose stack
- Log in with the default superuser and start building your own apps

Why this MVP is valuable

Production-first defaults – secure settings, SSL-friendly config, and sensible defaults so you don’t forget important flags on launch day. ([GitHub][1])
Full project structure – apps, settings, env config and tooling are already wired up, so you can jump straight into your business logic. ([GitHub][1])
Extensible & opinionated – works great as-is, but you can fork or layer your own project-specific conventions on top. ([GitHub][1])

What you get in this MVP listing

Clear documentation on how to generate and configure a new Cookiecutter Django project
Recommended project options for a modern SaaS-style Django app
Suggested deployment flow (Docker + Postgres + S3 + Mail provider)
Suggested tech stack and tags for discoverability in the MVP marketplace

⚖️ License notice: Cookiecutter Django itself is released under the BSD-3-Clause license. This MVP listing packages configuration, documentation and recommended options for using the original project template in your own products. Please always review the upstream license and attribution requirements before launching a commercial product.

Screenshots

Cookiecutter Django