How to Create a Django 6 App with PostgreSQL and Bootstrap for Fly.io

Published on 14 Dec 2025Development

Building a Django 6 application with a PostgreSQL database is a professional-grade setup that ensures scalability. This guide covers using a requirements.txt file for dependency management, Bootstrap for the frontend, and environment variables for security.

1. Project Setup & Virtual Environment

First, create your project directory and set up a virtual environment to keep your dependencies isolated.


mkdir my_fly_project && cd my_fly_project
python -m venv venv
# Activate on Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
# Activate on Mac/Linux: source venv/bin/activate

2. Define Dependencies (requirements.txt)

Fly.io requires a production-grade web server like Gunicorn and the dj-database-url package to parse the database connection string.


Django>=6.0,<7.0
psycopg2-binary
django-bootstrap5
python-dotenv
dj-database-url
gunicorn
whitenoise

Install these using: pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Local Configuration with .env

Create a file named .env in your root folder. This keeps sensitive data out of your source code.


DEBUG=True
SECRET_KEY=your-local-dev-key
DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@localhost:5432/dbname

4. Configure Django Settings

Modify core/settings.py to load the environment variables and configure Whitenoise for static files (Bootstrap).


import os
import dj_database_url
from pathlib import Path
from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()
BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent

SECRET_KEY = os.getenv('SECRET_KEY')
DEBUG = os.getenv('DEBUG') == 'True'

ALLOWED_HOSTS = [os.getenv('FLY_APP_NAME', '') + '.fly.dev', 'localhost', '127.0.0.1']

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware',
    # ... other middleware
]

DATABASES = {
    'default': dj_database_url.config(
        default=os.getenv('DATABASE_URL'),
        conn_max_age=600
    )
}

STATIC_URL = 'static/'
STATIC_ROOT = BASE_DIR / 'staticfiles'

5. Bootstrap Integration

In your template file (e.g., myapp/templates/base.html), use the bootstrap5 tags to load assets.


{% load django_bootstrap5 %}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    {% bootstrap_css %}
</head>
<body class="container">
    <h1>Django 6 + Bootstrap</h1>
    {% bootstrap_javascript %}
</body>
</html>

6. Deployment to Fly.io

Follow these steps to push your application live:

fly launch: Initialize the app and create a PostgreSQL database when prompted.
fly secrets set: Upload your production SECRET_KEY and set DEBUG=False.
fly deploy: Build and release your application.