Serve static files the proper way (WhiteNoise maybe)

[bittner]

Deploying Static Files

Django's Staticfiles allow collectstatic to push static files to various storage backends (including S3 Buckets). Also, the web proxy should serve the files directly without Django being involved. Alternatively, WhiteNoise in combination with a CDN may be a more modern approach.

Developing With Static Files

At the moment manage.py collectstatic must be used for local development too. This is closer to environment parity, but not handy for development. Outside of Docker WhiteNoise could be serving static files during development via the whitenoise.runserver_nostatic app.

See Also

• Django docs "Serving static files from a cloud service or CDN"
• StackOverflow "docker, nginx, django and how to serve static files"
• WhiteNoise in Development, Django Compressor "Offline Compression"
• WhiteNoise "Additional Notes" (use WhiteNoise correctly, media files)