Top Django books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Django books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Django

Understanding the concepts of Django starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Django Girls Tutorial

Django Girls Tutorial

Welcome to the Django Girls Tutorial! We are happy to see you here :) In this tutorial, we will take you on a journey under the hood of web technologies, offering you a glimpse of all the bits and pieces that need to come together to make the web work as we know it. As with all unknown things, this is going to be an adventure - but no worries, since you already worked up the courage to be here…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Test-Driven Development with Python: Obey the Testing Goat: Using Django, Selenium, and JavaScript

Test-Driven Development with Python: Obey the Testing Goat: Using Django, Selenium, and JavaScript

By taking you through the development of a real web application from beginning to end, the second edition of this hands-on guide demonstrates the practical advantages of test-driven development (TDD) with Python. You’ll learn how to write and run tests before building each part of your app, and then develop the minimum amount of code required to pass those tests. The result? Clean code that wo…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Django for Beginners: Build websites with Python and Django

Django for Beginners: Build websites with Python and Django

Completely updated in May 2023 for Django 4.2. Learn how to build five real-world Python web applications with authentication, testing, permissions, environment variables, and production-ready deployment. Key Features * Master Django fundamentals, including models, ORM, views, templates, settings, forms, authentication, and middleware. * Deploy your websites into production and learn how to to…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Django for APIs: Build web APIs with Python and Django

Django for APIs: Build web APIs with Python and Django

Django for APIs is a project-based guide to building modern web APIs with Django & Django REST Framework. It is suitable for beginners who have never built an API before as well as professional programmers looking for a fast-paced introduction to Django fundamentals and best practices. Over the course of 200+ pages you'll learn how to set up a new project properly, how web APIs work under the …

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Django for Professionals: Production Websites with Python & Django

Django for Professionals: Production Websites with Python & Django

This book covers in-depth how professional Django programmers do their job and build real-world web applications. Topics covered include Docker, environment variables, payments, search, permissions, file/image uploads, testing, security, performance, and deployment. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction Chapter 1: Docker *Chapter 2: PostgreSQL Chapter 3: Bookstore Project Chapter 4: Pages App Chapte…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Two Scoops of Django: Best Practices for Django 1.8 (India E-Book)

Two Scoops of Django: Best Practices for Django 1.8 (India E-Book)

Two Scoops of Django: Best Practices For Django 1.8 is chock-full of even more material that will help you with your Django projects.We'll introduce you to various tips, tricks, patterns, code snippets, and techniques that we've picked up over the years.We have put thousands of hours into the third edition of the book, writing and revising its material to include significant improvements and n…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Additional Django Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Django, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Django 3 By Example: Build Powerful and Reliable Python Web Applications from Scratch, 3rd Edition

Django 3 By Example: Build Powerful and Reliable Python Web Applications from Scratch, 3rd Edition

If you want to learn the entire process of developing professional web applications with Python and Django, then this book is for you. In the process of building four professional Django projects, you will learn about Django 3 features, how to solve common web development problems, how to implement best practices, and how to successfully deploy your applications. In this book, you will build a…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Django Unleashed

Django Unleashed

Django is an amazingly powerful system for creating modern, dynamic websites. But programming Django hasn’t always been easy–until now. Django Unleashed is your step-by-step, beginner-friendly guide to leveraging Django’s core capabilities and its powerful contributed library. You’ll learn in the most effective way possible: hands on, by building a fully functional Django website from scratch.…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

High Performance Django

High Performance Django

Getting started with Django is easy. There are tutorials and books that literally walk you through the process of getting your first site up and running. Taking that code from your laptop to the real world is like opening pandora’s box.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Lightweight Django

Lightweight Django

How can you take advantage of the Django framework to integrate complex client-side interactions and real-time features into your web applications? Through a series of rapid application development projects, this hands-on book shows experienced Django developers how to include REST APIs, WebSockets, and client-side MVC frameworks such as Backbone.js into new or existing projects.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Django 5 By Example - Fifth Edition

Django 5 By Example - Fifth Edition

Django 5 By Example is the fifth edition of the best-selling franchise that helps you build real-world web apps. This book will walk you through planning and creation, solving common problems, and implementing best practices using a step-by-step approach. You'll cover a wide range of web application development topics through four different projects: a blog application, a social website, an e-…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Specializations and Deeper Django Knowledge

You've got your basics in order – time to move on to some advanced and specialized concepts. Django is evolving every day, these books can help you master it.

Mastering Django

Mastering Django

Mastering Django is the latest version of Mastering Django: Core—the original, best-selling programmer’s reference for Django. Mastering Django is not just a revision of the original book—it has been completely rewritten from the ground up to meet the needs of modern Django programmers. The main goal of this book is to make you a Django expert. By reading this book, you’ll learn the skills nee…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Have any other suggestions? Add here.

Augment your Django books

There is no better source of accountability and motivation than having a personal mentor. What used to be impossible to find is now just two clicks away! All mentors are vetted & hands-on!

Only 3 Spots Left

I've spent a good chunk of my career mentoring folks through various stages of their professional journeys. It's been a rewarding ride, helping many individuals land great jobs and ace interviews, while also supporting others in making career shifts, revamping portfolios, and successfully completing Machine Learning and Deep Learning projects …

$110 / month
  Chat
1 x Call

Only 5 Spots Left

I started my career as a vocational trainer, then continued as a developer and other roles including management, or being a technical co-founder. I believe that my core strength is the ability to coach people and get them to their next level of technical capability, whichever their starting point is. …

$120 / month
  Chat
4 x Calls
Tasks


💼 Davide is a Software Engineer @Microsoft and a top-tier mentor for anyone aspiring to break into the big tech industry, scale up their startups, acquire new technical skills, or wish to collaborate on innovative projects. With a rich background as both a Product Manager and Software Engineer, Davide brings …

$100 / month
  Chat
2 x Calls
Tasks

Only 2 Spots Left

Sourav is a Senior Software Developer at IBM Research Lab. He is working as a Full-Stack Developer in building highly scalable, resilient distributed systems. Sourav will help you with preparing coding interviews and system Design for FAANG and other top product companies Have been passionately solving Leetcode, HackerRank, Codechef, Codeforces, …

$120 / month
  Chat
2 x Calls
Tasks

Only 1 Spot Left

I am a Software Engineer with very deep knowledge of back-end systems, cloud infrastructure, databases, data engineering, and building data-driven products and services. I've been coding since my school days and have spent a good part of the last decade and a half writing code. I'm a self-taught programmer, and …

$150 / month
  Chat
2 x Calls
Tasks

Only 2 Spots Left

Welcome to my profile! # My experience: I am a 10 years experience Python engineer. I have been working with Python, Django and Flask since 2012, started in France, lived in the UK for 5 years and now enjoying the south of Spain. I built my projects early in my …

$120 / month
  Chat
2 x Calls
Tasks

Browse all Django mentors

Still not convinced?
Don’t just take our word for it

We’ve already delivered 1-on-1 mentorship to thousands of students, professionals, managers and executives. Even better, they’ve left an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for our mentors.

Find a Django mentor
  • "Naz is an amazing person and a wonderful mentor. She is supportive and knowledgeable with extensive practical experience. Having been a manager at Netflix, she also knows a ton about working with teams at scale. Highly recommended."

  • "Brandon has been supporting me with a software engineering job hunt and has provided amazing value with his industry knowledge, tips unique to my situation and support as I prepared for my interviews and applications."

  • "Sandrina helped me improve as an engineer. Looking back, I took a huge step, beyond my expectations."