PreviewDrop for Django

Django preview environments. $19/mo flat.

Every Django branch gets a live HTTPS URL — migrations run, Celery workers start, Channels websockets work, admin site loads. The same Docker container you'd push to prod, on infrastructure you never touch. No serverless adapters, no Lambda limits.

TL;DR

Drop the Dockerfile below into your Django repo, set ALLOWED_HOSTS, DATABASE_URL, and DJANGO_SECRET_KEY in the Variables tab, push a branch. 5 minutes to your first preview URL. Works with Django 4.x and 5.x, Python 3.10+. $19/mo on Starter. No per-build charges.

How PreviewDrop compares for Django

Feature	PreviewDrop	Vercel	Railway / Render
Django support	First-class — Dockerfile or auto-detect	Not natively — django-vercel adapter	First-class — Dockerfile based
Migrations at start	Run in container CMD	No persistent process	Run in container CMD
Celery workers	Second project on same repo	Not supported	Separate service
Channels / WebSocket	Native, no limit	Limited by serverless	Native, no limit
Admin site	Works out of the box	Works (if adapter configured)	Works out of the box
ALLOWED_HOSTS handling	One glob in Variables tab	n/a	Manual per-service config
Pricing	$19/mo flat	Per-seat + usage-based	Usage-based or per-seat
CI config needed	None	None	Minimal to none
Password protection	One toggle	If you build auth	If you build auth
PR comment with URL	Built-in	Built-in	Built-in or scripted
Auto-expiring TTL	1–168 hours by plan	Manual cleanup	Manual or configurable

When to pick each

PreviewDrop — You want Django previews on every PR with zero CI config and a flat $19/mo price. You don't want to maintain infrastructure, YAML workflows, or serverless adapters.

Vercel — Django is not Vercel's target. Use it only if your Django app is a thin API layer and you're comfortable with serverless constraints (10s execution limit, no Celery, no Channels).

Railway / Render — Good general-purpose platforms if you also need production hosting from the same vendor. You trade higher and less predictable cost for unified tooling.

What Django teams actually deal with

ALLOWED_HOSTS breaks every new preview

The single most common Django preview failure. One misconfigured ALLOWED_HOSTS and Django returns DisallowedHost on every request. PreviewDrop's wildcard subdomain pattern (.previews.previewdrop.dev) covers all previews with a single glob — set it once.

Migrations that need a real database

Django previews without migrations are half-baked — the admin site is broken, models are stale. Running migrate at container start means every preview gets a current schema. Pair with Neon branching for per-branch database isolation.

Serverless shoehorning wastes engineering time

Fitting Django into a serverless function (django-vercel, Zappa, etc.) means giving up Celery, Channels, middleware, and long-running management commands. You're deploying a reduced version of your app — one that diverges from production in subtle, hard-to-debug ways.

Manual staging deploys slow down review

Without per-branch previews, the only way to see a Django change live is to merge it to staging — or run docker compose locally and expose it with ngrok. Neither is fast. A preview URL posted to the PR the moment you push changes the review cadence entirely.

Dockerfile

Drop this at the root of your Django repo. It installs system dependencies, runs pip install, and starts gunicorn with migrations. PreviewDrop picks it up automatically on the next push.

Dockerfile
FROM python:3.12-slim
WORKDIR /app
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
    build-essential libpq-dev \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
COPY requirements.txt ./
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
COPY . .
EXPOSE 8000
CMD ["sh", "-c", "python manage.py migrate --noinput && \
    gunicorn project.wsgi --bind 0.0.0.0:$PORT --workers 2"]

How it works

Add the Dockerfile

Drop the Dockerfile above at the root of your Django repo. If you already have one, skip this. PreviewDrop also auto-detects Django repos without a Dockerfile.

Set your env vars

DATABASE_URL, DJANGO_SECRET_KEY, ALLOWED_HOSTS, CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS. Set once in the Variables tab — encrypted at rest, injected at container start.

Push and preview

Every branch gets a live HTTPS URL posted to the PR. Migrations run, admin site loads, Celery workers start. Preview auto-expires on merge or per your plan TTL.

$19/mo flat. Unlimited Django previews.

No per-build charges, no usage-based billing, no serverless function invocation math. Preview every Django branch without thinking about cost.

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vs Vercel Previews vs Vercel vs Netlify vs GitHub Actions vs Heroku Review Apps

See your Django branch live before it merges

Connect a repo, push a branch, get a URL. No credit card, no serverless adapters, no CI config.

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