Django Unleashed: 12 Must-Try Project Ideas for Newbies

Learning Django, a powerful and versatile web development framework, can open up many opportunities for aspiring web developers. To truly master Django, you need hands-on experience with a variety of projects that challenge you to apply your skills in different contexts.

In this article, we’ll explore 12 engaging Django project ideas for beginners that will help you advance your skills, build an impressive portfolio, and gain practical experience with the framework. These projects cater to a range of interests and difficulty levels, ensuring that you’ll find the perfect challenge to hone your skills and boost your confidence as a Django developer.

Let’s dive right in.

1. Create a Blog Using Django

If you are a beginner in Django, this is a good project to do for you. You can create a blog website completely from scratch using the Django framework. 

A blog is a website where you can create articles, update or edit them and also delete them as well. There will be a home page to display all the articles and when the users click an individual article, it will take them to another page where they can read more about that article.

It is just like the website that you are now in. You can create a blog like this with Django. You just need to know the basics of python and the fundamentals of front-end technologies like HTML and CSS.

The advantage of Django is that you don’t even need to code the admin interface of your blog. Django has built-in features for that and you can use the Django admin interface with ease.

I have created a tutorial to help you make a blog using the Django framework. I did not include a lot about the design of the website in this tutorial. You can do that by yourself if you know some amount of CSS.

You can click here to read my tutorial and do the project. This is a fun project that you can easily do even if you are a beginner.

2. To-Do App using Django

It is a good way to learn a new piece of technology by creating a simple and interesting To-Do app. A to-do list is a list of tasks that one needs or intends to accomplish. 

You may already know what it is or may have used some to-do apps. At least you may have written your list of tasks that are to be done in a paper. Now, we are going to automate that thing with a to-do app. 

You can build a complete to-do application using Django and you can use it for yourself for listing down your tasks so that you don’t forget them. This is a simple, but useful app for most of us.

Also, you don’t need to be an expert Django programmer to make this app. If you know the basics of Django, you’re good to go. I’ve written a step-by-step article on doing this project easily.

If you’re interested in doing this project, check out this tutorial and complete the project.

3. Hacker News Clone App

A good way to do Django projects if you do not have any cool ideas is to make clones of existing websites and applications. You can make a clone of whatever website you like with Django.

So, you can search the Internet and find a cool website and then just make a clone of that website. That will help you to know how these websites work internally.

I found a tutorial on how to create a clone of the “Hacker News” website. In this tutorial, he would take you through building a social news site called “Steel Rumors” from scratch using Django 1.5.

If you would like to use this tutorial to build a clone of hacker news, then go ahead and click this link. Follow the step-by-step instructions and complete the project.

After doing this project, you can try doing a clone of some other websites without following a tutorial. If you do a project by yourself, then you will get a lot of confidence and it will make you ready to take on tougher projects.

4. Login System using Django

If you are a Django developer, then you should know how to create a login system. Every backend developer should know how to do this since almost every commercial project uses a login system.

If you don’t know this already, then you should learn this. I have found a YouTube video in which someone teaches you how to create a fully functional login page within 10 minutes.

Check out this amazing video tutorial, which I found on YouTube. Make sure you learn this stuff because it will be useful for you in almost every project.

Also, you will be able to know how the login system of a website works from a web developer’s perspective.

5. Portfolio of Projects

I think this is a cool idea. You can make a portfolio website in which you can showcase all the works that you have done. You can use it as a resume website when you apply for jobs.

What about implementing the whole website using Django? You can create the portfolio website with Django and you can list out all the other Django projects that you have done.

Then, when you apply for a job or go for an interview, you have a lot of things to show your employer. You can show them this portfolio filled with projects that you have done.

In this case, the chances of landing a job are very high. They will be amazed by the work that you have done.

Here is a link to a video course that will help you to create a beautiful personal portfolio to showcase your Python skills.

6. Chatbots Using Django

Have you ever gone to a website and wondered how do they make these chatbots? A lot of websites and applications are using chatbots to engage with their customers.

By the way, if you do not know what a chatbot is, a chatbot is a piece of software that conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. It is like a computer program that simulates human conversation, or chat, through artificial intelligence and other technologies.

A chatbot can identify the user’s intent and extract data and relevant entities contained in the user’s request. This brings immense value to a business.

You can create a chatbot and implement it on your website using Django as well. This is kind of an advanced-level project. If you are a newbie to programming, then I do not recommend you to start this project immediately.

But if you already have done some projects and gained some level of confidence in your programming skills, then you can try doing a project in which you can implement a chatbot.

If you are willing to create chatbots, check out this YouTube video. I hope this will help you in doing an amazing project.

7. Weather App using Django

If you have done some basic projects like a blog, a to-do list, and some crud applications (applications that can create, read, update, and delete data), then it is time to do a cool app that solves some problems.

Talking about a cool app, what if we make an app for displaying the weather in the main cities around the world. This will be useful to the users who need to know the weather in a particular city.

For doing this project easily, you can take the help of some APIs ( an application programming interface is a set of subroutine definitions, communication protocols, and tools for building software).

You can do your project in Django and integrate it with some APIs. Someone might have already created useful resources in the form of APIs and you can use them directly in your project.

By doing a project like this, you will be able to know what an API is and how to use them in your projects. This knowledge will be very valuable if you want to become a web developer.

I found a tutorial on Youtube which will teach you how to create a weather app with the help of an API. Check out the video by clicking here.

8. E-commerce Website using Django

Have you ever been to e-commerce websites like Amazon? An e-commerce website is a place where people can buy or sell products over the Internet and transfer money and data to execute those transactions.

A website like Amazon has a lot of functionalities and it completely changed the way we approach buying or selling products. If you have a product to sell, you can sell them on e-commerce websites like Amazon, or else you can create your e-commerce website.

Even if you do not have a product to sell, you can do a project like this for practice. Create an e-commerce website with the help of the Django skills that you already have. It will be a good project to learn a lot of things.

I found a video tutorial that will help you to create an e-commerce website using Django. Check it out here, and make some money with your e-commerce website if you can.

9. Social Media Website using Django

We all use social media, right? Do you know that many of these applications are made up using Python and Django? Popular websites like Instagram, YouTube, DropBox, BitBucket, Pinterest, etc. are all powered by Python and Django.

You can also make a social media website with the help of the Django framework. If you have some clever ideas to implement in your dream social media app, then just do a project like this and create your app. Maybe, it will become the next Instagram or Facebook, who knows?

This will be cool if you can make a social media app for you and your friends so that all of you can have some fun with the app. Gradually, you can take suggestions from your friends and improve the app.

This could be a nice project to fit into your portfolio. Check out this video tutorial on YouTube. I hope it will help you to do an awesome project.

10. Video Subscription Website using Django

Video memberships website is a website in which you can subscribe to some channels by paying some amount, just like NetFlix. Django can be used to build such a website completely.

By doing this kind of project, you will be able to learn how to use APIs, how to deal with payments, handling data. and much more. You can integrate a payment gateway like Stripe into your project and leverage the stripe dashboard and its functionalities.

You will get to know about building checkout pages, configuring payment periods, working with Stripe frontend, processing payments, analyzing payment data, allowing subscription cancellations, etc.

If you want to create a video membership website with Django, you may find this video helpful. This will be a fun project to do and you will be able to learn a lot.

11. Online School System using Django

In this project, you will be building an online school system where teachers can create assignments that students can complete and view their results. You can use your Django skills to create a useful web application like this.

By doing this project, you will be able to know how you can create a multiple-user-type system with the Django Rest Framework and React. Hence, you will get to know a lot about the Rest framework of Django and also some amount of React, which is a front-end Javascript framework.

A project like this will improve both your front-end web development skills as well as back-end skills. If you want to become a full-stack web developer with Django, I recommend you to do this project. Here is the link to a video playlist that will help you do this project.

12. Deploy your existing Django Websites 

The way of delivering your product code to your customer is commonly called deployment or web hosting. In other words, it is the process of publishing your code to the Internet so that everyone can access your project. 

Even if it is not for commercial purposes, you should deploy your projects on the Internet and make them available to everyone.

This is important because when you make your portfolio, you can add the links to your projects there so that everyone can click those links to see the work that you have done.

This will be important for your clients or employers since it will make them trust you. By seeing the portfolio of projects that you have done, they will be able to know that you are a skillful web developer. The chances of getting a job are much higher in this scenario.

Also, as a web developer, you should be able to deploy websites on the Internet by yourself. And it isn’t as expensive as you think. You can use free platforms like Python Anywhere or Heroku for deploying your apps easily. You can add the links to your portfolio as well.

This is an important skill every web developer should have. I’ve written a step-by-step tutorial on deploying your Django app to Heroku for free. If you have already done some Django projects, then deploy your projects to the Internet with the help of this simple tutorial.

A Project-Based Course To Make Your Life Easier

To become a fully-fledged Django developer, check out Brad Traversy’s Python Django Dev To Deployment course on Udemy! It’s a game-changer for Django projects and super affordable too. Brad’s the expert from Traversy Media YouTube channel, so you know it’s good. This course is available at a discounted price for a limited time. Click here to check out the course contents.

Conclusion

In conclusion, gaining hands-on experience with Django through practical projects is an essential step towards becoming a proficient web developer. These 12 project ideas offer a variety of challenges that will not only help you strengthen your skills but also build a portfolio that demonstrates your capabilities to potential employers or clients. So, don’t hesitate – dive into these projects and start exploring the power and flexibility of Django.

Before you start a project, make sure you have some ideas about the project goals. If you’re interested in doing more projects, check out this article on 55 Python Project Ideas with Helpful Tutorials.

Do you have any other cool ideas for doing Django projects? Let me know your ideas in the comments section. I will try to include them in this article. If you have any doubts or queries, feel free to ask them in the comments.

Happy coding!