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Connect a Django application to Neon

To connect to Neon from a Django application Prerequisites. A Neon account and project with connection parameters ready Python 3.8+ installed An existing Django project (or create one with django admi...

Pre-built prompt for connecting Django applications to Neon

To connect to Neon from a Django application:

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • A Neon account and project with connection parameters ready
  • Python 3.8+ installed
  • An existing Django project (or create one with django-admin startproject myproject)

important

Section titled “important”

Always use a Python virtual environment. Do not install packages globally. If you do not have one set up, create and activate it before proceeding:

Bash
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate   # macOS / Linux
# venv\Scripts\activate    # Windows

Install the PostgreSQL driver

Section titled “Install the PostgreSQL driver”

Install psycopg (the modern psycopg3 driver) and python-dotenv inside your virtual environment:

Bash
pip install "psycopg[binary]" python-dotenv

note

Section titled “note”

The docs examples below use psycopg (v3). If your project uses the older psycopg2 driver, see Connection issues for SNI compatibility requirements.

  1. Create a Neon project

    If you do not have one already, create a Neon project. Save your connection details including your password. They are required when defining connection settings.

    To create a Neon project:

    1. Navigate to the Projects page in the Neon Console.
    2. Click New Project.
    3. Specify your project settings and click Create Project.

  2. Configure Django connection settings

    Connecting to Neon requires configuring database connection settings in your Django project's settings.py file.

    note

    To avoid the endpoint ID is not specified connection issue described here, be sure that you are using an up-to-date driver.

    In your Django project, navigate to the DATABASES section of your settings.py file and modify the connection details as shown:

    Python
    # Add these at the top of your settings.py
from os import getenv
from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()

# Replace the DATABASES section of your settings.py with this
DATABASES = {
  'default': {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
    'NAME': getenv('PGDATABASE'),
    'USER': getenv('PGUSER'),
    'PASSWORD': getenv('PGPASSWORD'),
    'HOST': getenv('PGHOST'),
    'PORT': getenv('PGPORT', 5432),
    'OPTIONS': {
      'sslmode': 'require',
    },
    'DISABLE_SERVER_SIDE_CURSORS': True,
    'CONN_HEALTH_CHECKS': True,
  }
}

    note

    Neon places computes into an idle state and closes connections after 5 minutes of inactivity (see Compute lifecycle). To avoid connection errors, you can set the Django CONN_MAX_AGE setting to 0 to close database connections at the end of each request so that your application does not attempt to reuse connections that were closed by Neon. From Django 4.1, you can use a higher CONN_MAX_AGE setting in combination with the CONN_HEALTH_CHECKS setting to enable connection reuse while preventing errors that might occur due to closed connections. For more information about these configuration options, see Connection management, in the Django documentation.

    You can find all of the connection details listed above by clicking the Connect button in the Console nav to open the Connect to your branch modal. For more information, see Connect from any application.

    Add a .env file to your project's root directory with the individual connection parameters (not a single DATABASE_URL, since Django's DATABASES setting expects separate fields):

    Bash
    PGHOST="<endpoint_hostname>.neon.tech"
PGDATABASE="<dbname>"
PGUSER="<user>"
PGPASSWORD="<password>"
PGPORT=5432

    Replace <endpoint_hostname>, <dbname>, <user>, and <password> with your actual database credentials.

    For additional information about Django project settings, see Django Settings: Databases, in the Django documentation.

  3. Test the connection

    Create a simple view to verify the database connection is working.

    1. In your project's main app directory (next to urls.py), create views.py:
      Python
      from django.http import JsonResponse
from django.db import connection

def db_version(request):
    with connection.cursor() as cursor:
        cursor.execute("SELECT version();")
        version = cursor.fetchone()[0]
    return JsonResponse({'version': version})
    2. Add a URL route in your project's urls.py:
      Python
      from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', views.db_version, name='db_version'),
]
    3. Run migrations and start the server:
      Bash
      python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver
    4. Visit http://localhost:8000 to see the PostgreSQL version from your Neon database.

Connection issues

Section titled “Connection issues”

  • Django uses the psycopg2 driver as the default adapter for Postgres. If you have an older version of that driver, you may encounter an Endpoint ID is not specified error when connecting to Neon. This error occurs if the client library used by your driver does not support the Server Name Indication (SNI) mechanism in TLS, which Neon uses to route incoming connections. The psycopg2 driver uses the libpq client library, which supports SNI as of v14. You can check your psycopg2 and libpq versions by starting a Django shell in your Django project and running the following commands:

    Bash
    # Start a Django shell
python3 manage.py shell

# Check versions
import psycopg2
print("psycopg2 version:", psycopg2.__version__)
print("libpq version:", psycopg2._psycopg.libpq_version())

    The version number for libpq is presented in a different format, for example, version 14.1 will be shown as 140001. If your libpq version is less than version 14, you can either upgrade your psycopg2 driver to get a newer libpq version or use one of the workarounds described in our Connection errors documentation. Upgrading your psycopg2 driver may introduce compatibility issues with your Django or Python version, so you should test your application thoroughly.

  • If you encounter an SSL SYSCALL error: EOF detected when connecting to the database, this typically occurs because the application is trying to reuse a connection after the Neon compute has been suspended due to inactivity. To resolve this issue, try one of the following options:

    • Set your Django CONN_MAX_AGE setting to a value less than or equal to the scale to zero setting configured for your compute. The default is 5 minutes (300 seconds).
    • Enable CONN_HEALTH_CHECKS by setting it to true. This forces a health check to verify that the connection is alive before executing a query.

    For information configuring Neon's Scale to zero setting, see Configuring Scale to zero for Neon computes.

Schema migration with Django

Section titled “Schema migration with Django”

For schema migration with Django, see our guide:

Django application blog post and sample application

Section titled “Django application blog post and sample application”

Learn how to use Django with Lakebase Postgres with this blog post and the accompanying sample application.

Community resources

Section titled “Community resources”
Notes for AI-assisted setup
  • Do not install packages globally. Always use a virtual environment and run commands with venv/bin/pip and venv/bin/python (or the activated equivalent).
  • Use psycopg[binary] (psycopg v3), not the older psycopg2. If the project already uses psycopg2, check the Connection issues section for SNI compatibility.
  • Include CONN_HEALTH_CHECKS: True in the DATABASES configuration. This prevents errors from idle connections when Neon scales to zero.
  • Do not hardcode credentials in settings.py. Use environment variables via python-dotenv and os.getenv(). For more information, see Security overview.
  • The .env file should use individual PG* variables (PGHOST, PGDATABASE, etc.), not a single DATABASE_URL, since Django's database configuration expects separate fields.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”

Need help?

Section titled “Need help?”

Join our Discord Server to ask questions or see what others are doing with Neon. For paid plan support options, see Support.

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