Backend Development Course: Build REST APIs with Django and PostgreSQL

Explain the request–response cycle and set up a clean Python back-end environment.

• HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) and status codes
• Headers, cookies and JSON
• What REST means in practice
• Why apps need a database
• Virtual environments and pip
• Testing APIs with Postman or Thunder Client

PythonvenvpipPostmanThunder Client

Create a Django project and show pages from your own models.

• Project and app structure
• Models, views and templates (MVT)
• URL routing
• Settings and the development server
• Customising the admin panel

Django

Practice: A simple blog with posts managed from the admin panel

Design tables, write basic SQL and query data with the Django ORM.

• Tables, primary keys and foreign keys
• SQL basics: SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, JOIN
• Django models, migrations and relationships (ForeignKey, ManyToMany)
• ORM queries, filtering and avoiding slow queries with select_related
• Indexes, and when they help

PostgreSQLpsql or pgAdminDjango ORM

Practice: Model a library: books, authors, members and loans

Build pages to create, read, update and delete data safely.

• Django forms and ModelForms
• Server-side validation and error messages
• Class-based generic views
• Flash messages
• Handling file and image uploads

Practice: A task manager with full CRUD

Build a clean JSON API that a React or mobile app can use.

• Serializers and validation
• APIView, ViewSets and routers
• Pagination, filtering and ordering
• Consistent error responses
• API documentation with an OpenAPI schema

Django REST Frameworkdrf-spectacular

Practice: A REST API for tasks · A contact book API

Protect your API so users only see and change what they are allowed to.

• Django's user model and password hashing
• Sessions and tokens, and when to use each
• JWT authentication with Simple JWT
• Permissions and role-based access
• Throttling (rate limiting) and CORS
• CSRF, XSS and SQL injection basics
• Keeping secrets in environment variables

djangorestframework-simplejwtdjango-cors-headers

Practice: A blog API with sign-up, login and author-only editing

Add the extra features real back-ends need and test them.

• Middleware and signals
• Sending email (for example, password reset)
• Logging
• Writing tests with Django's test client or pytest
• Background tasks: what they are and when you need them

pytestDjango test client

Practice: Add tests and email notifications to your blog API

Put your Django API and database online with safe production settings.

• Production settings: DEBUG off, allowed hosts, secret key
• Running Django with Gunicorn
• Serving static files with WhiteNoise
• Hosting on Render or Railway with a managed PostgreSQL database
• Environment variables and database migrations in production

GunicornWhiteNoiseRenderRailway

Recognise how Node.js/Express and Flask solve the same problems, so you can read and learn them later.

• Node.js, npm and the event loop in simple words
• Express routes, middleware and request/response objects
• MongoDB with Mongoose: documents compared with SQL tables
• Flask routing, Jinja2 templates and SQLAlchemy
• How to choose a stack for a project

Node.jsExpressMongoDBFlask

Practice: Rebuild one endpoint of your tasks API in Express and in Flask to compare