Configuring Django Apps for Heroku
Last updated 03 June 2020
The basics
First, and most importantly, Heroku web applications require a Procfile.
This file is used to explicitly declare your application’s process types and entry points. It is located in the root of your repository.
Procfile
web: gunicorn myproject.wsgi
This Procfile requires Gunicorn, the production web server that we recommend for Django applications. For more information, see Deploying Python Applications with Gunicorn.
Installing gunicorn
$ pip install gunicorn
Be sure to add gunicorn to your requirements.txt file as well.
settings.py changes
On Heroku, sensitive credentials are stored in the environment as config vars. This includes database connection information (named DATABASE_URL), which is traditionally hardcoded in Django applications.
The django-heroku package automatically configures your Django application to work on Heroku. It is compatible with Django 2.0 applications.
It provides many niceties, including the reading of DATABASE_URL, logging configuration, a Heroku CI–compatible TestRunner, and automatically configures ‘staticfiles’ to “just work”.
Installing django-heroku:
$ pip install django-heroku
Be sure to add django-heroku to your requirements.txt file as well.
Add the following import statement to the top of settings.py:
import django_heroku
Then add the following to the bottom of settings.py:
# Activate Django-Heroku.
django_heroku.settings(locals())
Deploy, and you should be good to go!