Building Your First Django App: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

Posted: September 14, 2024 | Updated: November 06, 2025

django basic app

Step 1: Create a folder and install Virtual Environment

Create a folder in your computer( Ex: My Django App) and open that folder in Code Editor like VS code (Right click and choose "Open with VS Code").

py -m venv venv

Note: Here "venv" is a virtual environment name.

Step 2: Activate the Virtual Environment and install Django in a virtual environment

Activate the virtual environment using the following command

venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

Note: If you cannot activate virtual environment and getting error message like "venv/Scripts/Activate.ps1 : File E:\Django for Production office apps\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system. For more information, see about_Execution_Policies at https:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170."

Solution: You need to set powershell ExecutionPolicy to Unrestricted using the following command.Just paste the command in Power shell.

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Then install the Django using the following command

pip install django

Step 3: Create a main project and create a separate app

Create a main Django project using the following command

django-admin startproject main .

Note: Here "main" is the main project name. You can use the command without the dot "django-admin startproject main". Using the command without dot will create a folder with your main project name and add files with the same name inside the folder.

If you want to create seperate app, use this command:

python manage.py startapp myapp

Note: Here "myapp" is an app name.

Step 4: Connect the app with the main project and connect the separate app URLs to the main project

Open main app settings.py file: main/settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    ...
    'myapp',  # <-- add this line
]

If your app doesn’t have a urls.py, create one:

# myapp/urls.py
from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.index, name='index'),
]

Then, connect your app’s URLs to your main project’s urls.py:

# project_name/urls.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', include('myapp.urls')),  # connect the app
]

Step 5: Run the app.

Run the app using the following command

py manage.py runserver

Step 6 (optional): Create another separate app to add a Custom user model (if it's necessary)

Next ❯