Demystifying Django Architecture : A Beginner-Friendly Guide

Source: Dev.to

1. Django’s Core Pattern: MVT != MVC

While most frameworks such as Laravel, Rails, and even Flask extensions follow the classic MVC (Model‑View‑Controller) design pattern, Django uses a closely related approach called MVT (Model‑View‑Template).

• Model – defines the database structure and handles data interactions.
• Template – handles what the user sees (UI rendering).
• View – processes logic, receives requests, and returns responses.

A simple flow of how Django works:

User request → URL → View (logic) → Model (data) → Template (display UI) → Browser

This separation helps developers maintain clean, scalable code—perfect for complex applications with both user‑facing features and admin management.

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2. Understanding Django’s Multiple Folder System

A Django project is organized into two main types of folders, each serving a distinct purpose.

2.1 Project Folder Structure

When you run:

django-admin startproject myproject

Django creates an outer folder (myproject/) that acts as the project root or workspace, and an inner folder (myproject/) that holds the configuration files.

myproject/                 # Project root
│
├── myproject/             # Configuration package
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── settings.py        # DB, apps, middleware, templates, etc.
│   ├── urls.py            # Project‑level URL routing
│   ├── wsgi.py / asgi.py  # Server gateway interface
│
├── manage.py              # CLI utility (migrations, runserver, etc.)
└── db.sqlite3             # Example database

Key files in the inner folder

• settings.py – central place for configuration (databases, installed apps, middleware, static files, etc.).
• urls.py – project‑level routing table; can include app‑specific URL patterns.
• wsgi.py / asgi.py – entry points for deploying the project on a web server.
• __init__.py – marks the folder as a Python package, enabling imports.

Think of the outer folder as the body of your project (where everything lives) and the inner folder as the brain (configuration).

2.2 App Folder Structure

After creating a project, you add apps to handle distinct functionalities:

python manage.py startapp myapp

Django creates the following structure:

myapp/
├── __init__.py       # Marks folder as a Python package
├── admin.py          # Register models with the admin site
├── apps.py           # App configuration
├── models.py         # Database models for this app
├── views.py          # Logic / controllers for this app
├── urls.py           # App‑specific routes (optional)
├── migrations/       # Database migrations for this app
└── templates/        # Optional HTML templates for this app

What this implies

• Modular – each app is self‑contained.
• Reusable – an app can be plugged into multiple projects.
• Organized – each app has its own models, views, and templates.

For example, you might have blog, shop, and users apps all within the same project.

2.3 How Project and App Work Together

The project (myproject/) holds global settings and routing, while each app contains its own models, views, templates, and logic.

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

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('blog/', include('blog.urls')),  # routes from the 'blog' app
]

This modular design keeps code organized and scalable, especially for larger projects.

2.4 Key Takeaways

• Separation of concerns: the project handles configuration and global routing; each app handles a specific feature set.
• Models manage data, views handle business logic, and templates manage presentation.
• The project + app structure makes it easy to add new functionality by creating new apps without affecting existing code, facilitating maintainability and scalability.