How to make Django use two different databases based on debug flag

Question

I want to use the simple SQLite database on my local environment and use a Postgresql database in production. How can I configure the settings file to know which database to use based on the value of DEBUG?

Answer 1

There are several options available:

1. Below is a very cheap solution. Django always selects the database called 'default'. You can assign it conditionally in settings.py:

   DATABASES = {
       'dev': {
           'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
           'NAME': BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3',
       },
       'production': {
           'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
           # ...
       },
   }
   
   DATABASES['default'] = DATABASES['dev' if DEBUG else 'production']
   

2. You can implement an alternate settings module called settings_dev.py. Configure database there and use the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE to point to yourapp.settings_dev.

3. Implementing a custom database router. This is almost certainly overkill for many use-cases. See the Django documentation on multiple database support.