Hello Coders,
This article presents a free Django starter coded on top of Material Dashboard design (free version), a well-known UI Kit crafted by Creative-Tim. Material Dashboard is a free Material Bootstrap 4 Admin with a fresh, new design inspired by Google's Material Design. This modern and free UI Kit is built over the popular Bootstrap 4 framework and it comes with a couple of third-party plugins redesigned to fit in with the rest of the elements. This material dashboard comes with 5 color filter choices for both the sidebar and the card headers (blue, green, orange, red and purple) and an option to have a background image on the sidebar.
Material Dashboard Django - links & resources
- Material Dashboard - Django, the product page hosted by AppSeed
- Material Django Demo - LIVE app deployment
- Active support via Discord - 24/7 LIVE Service

Material Dashboard - Django Codebase
This Django starter is coded on top of a simple codebase enhanced with authentication, SQLite database and deployment scripts for Docker and Gunicorn/Nginx stack - Full list of features:
- UI Kit: Material Dashboard (Free version) provided by Creative-Tim
- SQLite Database, Django Native ORM
- Modular design, clean code-base
- Session-Based Authentication, Forms validation
- Deployment scripts: Docker, Gunicorn / Nginx
How to use the code
To compile and start the app in our workstation, Python3 should be installed properly in the workstation. If you are not sure if Python is properly installed, please open a terminal and type `python --version`. The full-list with dependencies and tools required to build the app:
- Python3 - the programming language used to code the app
- GIT - used to clone the source code from the Github repository
- Basic development tools (g++ compiler, python development libraries ..etc) used by Python to compile the app dependencies in your environment.
For more information on how to set up your environment please access the resources:
- How to set up Python
- Setup CentOS for development
- Setup Ubuntu for development
- Setup Windows for development
A simplified version of build instructions are listed below. Full-information is provided in the README file, published on Github or via the reference documentation - Django Dashboard Boilerplate.
$ # Get the code
$ git clone https://github.com/app-generator/django-dashboard-material.git
$ cd django-dashboard-material
$
$ # Virtualenv set up
$ virtualenv env
$ source env/bin/activate
$
$ # Install modules - SQLite Storage
$ pip3 install -r requirements.txt
$
$ # Create tables
$ python manage.py makemigrations
$ python manage.py migrate
$
$ # Start the application (development mode)
$ python manage.py runserver # default port 8000
$
$ # Start the app - custom port
$ # python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:<your_port>
$
$ # Access the web app in browser: http://127.0.0.1:8000/
By typing above commands, we should see the app running in the browser. Please note that the app is not provided with default users and you should create a new one using the registration page.

Material Dashboard - RTL support
In case your project require RTL support (arabic charset) this Django freebie might help you to achieve faster this goal, with less manual work.

Material Dashboard - User profile page

Thanks for reading! Want more? Go PRO with Material PRO Django, a premium starter provided by AppSeed.
Material Dashboard PRO is a Premium Material Bootstrap 4 Admin with a fresh, new design inspired by Google's Material Design. It is based on the popular Bootstrap 4 framework and comes packed with multiple third-party plugins. All components are built to fit perfectly with each other, while aligning to the material concepts. Material Dashboard PRO makes use of light, surface and movement. The general layout resembles sheets of paper following multiple layers, so that the depth and order is obvious. Inside the archive you will find multiple example pages on how to use all components. And, of course, every element is documented.
