Installing Django in Virtual Environment

Django is an opinionated framework that helps you become productive. For instance, the file structure when you create a Django project. But, if you wish to explore the field of web development in Python in detail; perhaps Flask is more up your alley. Feel free to skip this part of the article, and jump directly to the Flask Installation help

As of this writing, current Django version was Django 1.9.2. But when you are reading this, right now, it could be higher.

The official installation guide is available here. You should install the latest stable and official release; and not the latest development version (unless you know what you are doing and you like to live dangerously!)

But before you start installing, make sure you are inside an activated virtual environment; where running the following command in terminal would look like this:

$ python --version
Python 3.5.1

It might not be 3.5.1 for you. It could very well be 3.4.3. But that is ok, just as long as it does not show it as 2.7.9 or something else that starts with 2.

Once you have ensured you are in an activated virtual environment, and python command points to a Python of version 3; you are ready to install Django. Just follow the official installation guide and install it with pip, the Python package manager.

Once installed; it would be a great idea to check what all did pip install; by executing the following command:

$ pip freeze

This would output a list of modules installed with current Python; and you should see Django with proper version (something like Django==1.9.2 in the list.

If you wish to use Windows, the above discussion is not applicable to you. Perhaps you only have access to a Windows machine, and for some personal reasons, you would prefer not working on a browser-based Linux box on the cloud (slow connection, perhaps?).

You might be able to follow this tutorial and set up Django with Python 3 in your Windows machine.

Or, you can use Virtualbox with a Vagrant box for Django development directly in your machine!