Deploying a Django 4.0 application on shared hosting can be a bit challenging compared to using dedicated hosting or cloud services. Shared hosting environments often have limitations and restrictions that you need to work around. Here is a general guide to help you deploy a Django 4.0 application on shared hosting:

Check Hosting Requirements:

Ensure that your shared hosting provider supports Python and allows you to run Django applications. Many shared hosts only support certain versions of Python.

Access to SSH Or Terminal:

Check if your shared hosting plan provides SSH access or Terminal. This is crucial for setting up and managing your Django application.

At the time of updating this article, the latest version of Django is Django 4.0.3 and by using the method that I am explaining in this post, it is possible to deploy a Django 4.0.3 project on shared hosting with MySQL database.

 

I have the Starter of the HostItBro Shared Hosting which I will be using in this post.

 

I quickly created a Django project for giving this demo. The  app has quotes in the database and it just displays them. You can download the project from github. I recommend you to download this project and practice deploying it before you deploy your actual project.

Create a Python App

Log in to CPanel and open Setup Python  App.

Click on Create Application

Configure Python Application in cPanel

To deploy your Django 4.0 blog on shared hosting, follow these instructions in your cPanel under Setup Python App:

  1. Select Python Version
    Choose Python 3.9.16 from the dropdown menu.

  2. Set Application Root
    Define the Application Root as the directory where you will upload your Django project files.

    ⚠️ Make sure this folder is different from your domain's document root (e.g., public_html).

    Example: cms.dydevops.com

  3. Set Application URL
    Enter the Application URL, which can be a domain or subdomain where your Django app should run.
    Example: https://cms.dydevops.com

  4. Application Startup File
    In this field, type:

    passenger_wsgi.py

  5. Application Entry Point
    In this field, type:

    application
  6. Click Create to set up the Python application environment.

This configuration ensures your Django project runs correctly under the Python WSGI server used by your shared hosting provider.

Click on the Create Button
After filling in all the required fields — Python version, application root, application URL, startup file, and entry point — click on the “Create” button to finalize the setup. This will generate a virtual environment and configure the WSGI interface needed to run your Django 4.0 project on shared hosting.

✅ Note: Once the application is created, you'll see the path to your virtual environment and a command to activate it via SSH or Terminal. You’ll use this later to install project dependencies.

Setup the Database

  • Open MySQL Databases in Cpanel

  • Create a new Database and note the database name. We will need it later.

  • Create a new MySQL user and note the username and password. We will need it later.

  • Add the new user to the new Database

  • Grant all the permissions to the user and select Make Changes
     

Upload your project

Open the File Manager and go to the Application root you specified in the part 1

Zip your project. Upload it to this folder and extract the zip file. Your project files should be in the same folder as the passenger_wsgi.py file. Make sure that manage.py and passenger_wsgi.py are in the same folder.

Edit the passenger_wsgi.py file.

Delete everything from this file and add the following code:

from dydevops.wsgi import application

Where base is your project folder. It is the same folder that contains your settings.py file. It will be different if you are not using the test project that I provided. You can locate your wsgi.py file and import application from it.

Now edit your settings.py

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['cms.dydevops.com','www.cms.dydevops.com']

In the DATABASES dictionary, modify the default database.

'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
        'NAME': 'databasename',
        'USER': 'databaseusername',
        'PASSWORD': 'databasepassword',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '3306',
    }

Make sure to replace databasename with the database name, databaseusername with the database username and databasepassword with the database password.

Now go to the end of the file, modify STATIC_URL and add the STATIC_ROOT and Media
 

STATIC_URL = 'static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, '/home/dydevops/cms.dydevops.com/static')
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'dydevops/static'),
]
# Media settings
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, '/home/dydevops/cms.dydevops.com/media')
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'

Now edit the __init__.py file

Add the following code

import pymysql
pymysql.install_as_MySQLdb()

Complete configuration from the Terminal

Open the Terminal in your CPanel. If you can not find the terminal, go to Manage Shell and Enable SSH Access. You can also do these steps using SSH but using the terminal is easy.
 

Copy the command to enter the virtual environment from your python app.

Run the copied command in the terminal and press enter to enter the virtual environment,

Install Django 4.0.3 by running the following command.

pip install django==4.0.3

pymysql is required for using the MySQL database. Install it using pip. Here you will install any other modules required by your Django app.

pip install pymysql

If your migrations are not complete, then make migrations.

python manage.py makemigrations

Run migrate to create tables in the database.

python manage.py migrate

Run collectstatic to move the static files to the static root folder specified in settings.

python manage.py collectstatic

Run createsuperuser to ass a user to the Django admin panel

python manage.py createsuperuser

Finally, restart the python  app.

Your Django app is deployed successfully. Open the url of your app to see if it is working fine. If you see the phusion passenger error page, you can find the error in the stderr.log file for debugging.

Transfer your Database (Optional)

This part of the tutorial will be helpful if you have the app running locally or somewhere else and you want to transfer the data from the database to the one in your shared hosting. Here I will assume that you have the Django  app on your computer and you want to transfer the data from the local database to the database on your shared hosting.

Run the following command on your computer to export all the data from the database to a json file.

python manage.py dumpdata>data.json

Now upload this file to the app folder in your shared hosting.

Open the terminal in the CPanel and enter the virtual environment (steps are mentioned in the previous part of the tutorial).

First, you will clear the database by running the following command:

python manage.py flush

Then run the following command to load the data from the data.json file into the database.

python manage.py loaddata data.json

Now if you open the url, you will see that the data has been added to the database.

Tags:

MySQL Python Shared Hosting django