Built with Django Newsletter - 2025 Week 34
Hey, Happy Friday!
Why are you getting this: *You signed up to receive this newsletter on Built with Django. I promised to send you the latest projects and jobs on the site as well as any other interesting Django content I encountered during the month. If you don't want to receive this newsletter, feel free to unsubscribe anytime.
News and Updates
- Apologies for not sending updates in a while. I'm working on partially automatic this process so that I'm more reliable.
- Because I left the newsletter hanging, something weird happened. We got 5k+ subscribers in just couple of months. Needless to say, 99% of them are fake. I'm going to send this issue to all and see who opens it. For the people who don't open for 3 issues I will just unsub manually.
- I decided to remove the Django updated part. Too much extra work for now. Hopefully you are ok with that. If not, let me know.
Sponsors
This issue is sponsored by CodeRabbit an AI Code Reviewer that provides context-aware feedback, refactoring suggestions and highlights code security issues.
In plain terms, you finally get a senior level developer reviewing your code! The best news is that it is completely free for any public repo! If you ask them nicely they might even give you more stuff for free.
I've been using it to develop my projects, including this one and I can't recommend it enough. At the very least, you should give it a try and judge for yourself.
Projects
- Fullyfreetools - 1000+ powerful tools for everyday tasks, professions and skillsets
- Overnight jobs HQ - The #1 job board for overnight jobs and night shifts hiring now
- uif calculators - tools to calculate your benefits and guide you through the UIF application process
- Announce - Simplifying Indian government announcements in 11+ regional languages - open-source and built with Django.
- MotherFlocker - Track egg production, manage flock expenses, and monitor your chickens with the help of RoboChicken AI.
- EachPod - Podcast Search & Discovery
- Fundgible - Fundgible helps independent creators grow a fanbase, offer unique perks, and bring their projects to life — all with built-in support tools and transparent rewards.
- PhaseSix - An open source pen and paper role playing platform for character creation, campaign management and more. Contains it's own rpg rules, 200+ spells, lots of armor, weapons and items in 7 eras.
- Word Unscrambler - Word Unscrambler helps you unscramble letters into valid words. It is a useful tool that finds high scoring words you can use in Scrabble and Words With Friends.
- Segura Mgmt - A cutting-edge Django-powered platform for investment management, project tracking, proposal generation, and investor engagement, streamlining operations and boosting growth.
- Ask HN Digests - Get the most insightful discussions and trending stories delivered to your inbox, every Wednesday.
- LinkCast - Transform your reading list into an audio experience
- PagePal - Read anything and never lose track of the story.
- Tiny Chat - Live Chat integration with Slack
- Insider Screener - Professional-grade insider trades tracking for informed investors
- Cocktail Love - Your one stop shop for all cocktails recipes.
- MAGiE - A retro-future puzzle game with bits and a totally rad mall!
- FanFlame - Interactive map based search interface for concerts and events in the bay area.
- Django tutorials - django-tutorial.dev is a free, beginner-to-advanced learning platform that teaches Django web development through interactive tutorials, real-world projects, and quizzes. Perfect for new learners
- QuikESG - AI-powered platform streamlining adhoc ESG reporting. Upload docs for smart ESG survey Fill, saving time & effort. Interactive Document Chat provides instant insights.
- WinifyAI - Automate Security Questionnaires with AI
- Doctor Channeling System - The Doctor Channeling System is a complete, fully-featured appointment booking solution designed for hospitals, clinics, and individual practitioners.
- EliteMotion Car Hire - Car Hire Nairobi
- Careignition - Careignition is the first healthcare data platform that defines healthcare in terms you can understand and manage.
- InnoVint - InnoVint helps wineries of all sizes grow, make, and sell wine more efficiently. See how our vineyard tracking, wine production, and inventory management solutions can help your wine business thrive.
- dirac - The Walmart of import/export
- iterum - Tailored appliance solutions for the operational residential sector.
- SteelSeries - Video games are awesome. There’s no limit to how awesome they can be. Our mission is to help every gamer push the boundaries of awesome and feel like a star.
- Kordle - A wordle-like game based on kpop idols.
- Modoba - Open Source email server. Regain your independence and protect your privacy by installing your own email server. It takes less than 10 minutes!
- JumpServer - JumpServer is an open-source Privileged Access Management (PAM) tool that provides DevOps and IT teams with on-demand and secure access to SSH, RDP, K8S, DB and RemoteApp endpoints through a browser.
- Commander Spellbook - Commander Spellbook is the search engine for Magic: The Gathering EDH combos.
- Sweepzy - Sweepzy provides a fun & interactive way for clubs/organisations to fundraise and foster engagement by crreating a sweepstakes end to end.
Jobs
From the Community
- User Timezones in Django by Aidas Bendoraitis - Store all datetimes in UTC and save each user’s timezone. Use Python’s zoneinfo (tzdata), update it regularly, and convert times only at input/output. Detect the user timezone in the browser and save it to the user profile or session for form and template conversion.
- How to Get Foreign Keys Horribly Wrong by Haki Benita - Django automatically creates indexes on ForeignKey fields, which are important for enforcing constraints and speeding up related operations. Trying to remove these indexes can cause Django to drop and recreate the entire foreign key, leading to costly migrations. To handle this properly, use SeparateDatabaseAndState in migrations and create indexes concurrently to avoid locking issues on live databases.
- Speed Up Django Queries with values() over only() by Johnny Metz - Django queries using .only() can be slow because they still create full model objects in memory. Using .values() returns simple dictionaries instead, making queries much faster and lighter. For large read-only datasets, .values() is a better choice to speed up performance.
- Rate Limiting for Django Websites by DjangoTricks - Unwanted bot traffic can flood a Django site and overwhelm the server.
Nginx’s rate-limiting zones let you cap how many requests each IP can make to specific paths or to the whole site, with optional short “burst” allowances.
When the limit is exceeded, Nginx returns a 429 error, protecting the site and leaving resources free for real users.
- Make Django show dates and times in the visitor’s local timezone by Kevin Renskers - Django stores datetimes in a fixed timezone, which can confuse users in different locations. To fix this, use JavaScript to get the visitor’s timezone and a Django middleware to apply it on the server. This way, dates show correctly on the first visit and all later visits, improving user experience.
Top 3 links from last Issue
- Ditching Django Admin for FastHTML with HTMX by Simon Moisselin - The author replaced Django Admin with a custom dashboard built using FastHTML and HTMX for better usability and monitoring of their online school. This new dashboard focuses on key metrics like daily active users and exercise attempts, providing a more intuitive experience with automatic refresh features. The simplified code and design allow for rapid development and easier management of complex data without the limitations of a general-purpose framework.
- Cabot - Self-hosted, easily-deployable monitoring and alerts service - like a lightweight PagerDuty
- Visio - Open source alternative to Google Meet and Zoom powered by LiveKit: HD video calls, screen sharing, and chat features.
Support
You can support this project by using one of the affiliate links below. These are always going to be projects I use and love! No "Bluehost" crap here!
- Buttondown - Email newsletter tool I use to send you this newsletter.
- Readwise - Best reading software company out there. I you want to up your e-reading game, this is definitely for you! It also so happens that I work for Readwise. Best company out there!
- Hetzner - IMHO the best place to buy a VPS or a server for your projects. I'll be doing a tutorial on how to use this in the future.
- SaaS Pegasus is one of the best (if not the best) ways to quickstart your Django Project. If you have a business idea but don't want to set up all the boring stuff (Auth, Payments, Workers, etc.) this is for you!
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