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Getting Started with Django Hosts

2026-04-12

If you've ever wanted to serve different Django apps on different subdomains — like blog.example.com and wedding.example.com — then django-hosts is the package you need. Here's how I set it up for this site.

Why Subdomains?

Subdomains let you logically separate different parts of your application while keeping everything under one Django project. Each subdomain can have its own URL configuration, templates, and even its own visual identity.

Setup in 3 Steps

1

Install the package

pip install django-hosts

Add 'django_hosts' to your INSTALLED_APPS and configure the middleware.

2

Create a hosts.py file

This file maps subdomain patterns to URL configurations:

from django_hosts import patterns, host

host_patterns = patterns('',
    host(r'', 'myporto.urls', name='root'),
    host(r'blog', 'blog.urls', name='blog'),
    host(r'wedding', 'wedding.urls', name='wedding'),
)
3

Configure your settings

Point Django to your hosts file and set the default host:

ROOT_HOSTCONF = 'myproject.hosts'
DEFAULT_HOST = 'root'

Gotchas I Ran Into

  • Local development requires editing your /etc/hosts file to test subdomains
  • Make sure the django_hosts middleware is placed before the common middleware
  • CSRF and allowed hosts settings need to account for all your subdomains

Once everything is wired up, it's a clean way to organize a multi-app Django project. Highly recommended if your project is growing beyond a single domain.