There is a huge doc[0] for a standard "deploy decent prod setup to VPS." What happens after you make some changes, something goes wrong with the server, and you have to go through all these steps again, only that it gets you to Day 1, not Day 90? It leaves a lot to be desired for quick, reproducible deploys.
Ime, adding a docker-compose and a couple Dokku commands on the server is the best experience I've seen so far.
Not sure that your link is an answer to my comment.
Whatever the case may be, I can take a single VPS and multi-host a bunch of domains, each with it's own Wordpress installation, DB, etc. Virtual hosts makes this possible. It's stupid simple. Getting a single Django application running under a single domain on a VPS is a nightmare. Particularly when you consider everything you have to do to migrate from the development environment to production.
This is why we do not do any Django development using the standard installation and go right wo running it just like production on either virtual machines or a dedicated on-premises Linux server. The development environment is as close to an exact match as the production environment. No SQLite, no runserver, no nonsense with static files, etc. This is what I think the Django project needs to really think about working on. There is no reason to have a crippled development environment at all. The base installation ought to be setup to migrate to a standard Linux host (not something purpose-built like Heroku) without much friction. If you are doing a more complex site with multiple servers, load balancing, etc., you are on your own.
I truly think adoption would be far greater if the deployment experience was sensible. I have talked to people who absolutely gave up on Django because going from development to production was a nightmare without spending money on far more expensive servers and services they should. This is an application (Django) that should easily run on any Linux server. The fact that companies were created to facilitate deployment says it all.
I agree, although as my other comment states, the most frictionless way I’ve found is to make a quick docker-compose, and run maybe 5 Dokku commands on the server. Then from dev environment just ‘git push dokku’. That’s the level of friction we should also expect from Django built in.
I missed that in your prior comment. Yes, I think you are right. Docker --which I kind of hate to admit-- seems to be the only low friction solution at this stage.
This is why I insist that the Django dev team ought to put some thought and effort into fixing this issue. If Django installed in a realistic baseline production configuration (not a toy DB, runserver, etc.) and came out of the box with a super simple mechanism to deploy to the average VPS the framework could become 10x more popular than it is today.
Nobody could blame a developer looking that the Digital Ocean deployment tutorial you linked to and thinking "f-ck this!". I can even see said developer using that as an argument against Python/Django if management was involved in making a platform decision.
There are dozens of articles just like that one that are multiple pages long. To me that constitutes absolute proof that deployment in Django is seriously flawed, if not broken. I hate to say that because I love the framework, but c'mon, the fact that such articles exist pretty much says this is ridiculous.
systemd service + gunicorn is not that bad, I think. You can have simple deployment and graceful restarts[0].
[0] https://nts.strzibny.name/gunicorn-graceful-restarts/