runserver

Runserver is a Django management command that starts a lightweight web server for a Django project. It is intended for development and testing rather than production deployment, providing a quick way to run and test code locally without configuring a full production stack. The server serves the Django application over HTTP and is typically invoked via the project’s manage.py script.

Usage and syntax commonly involve running a command such as python manage.py runserver, optionally followed by an address and port. By default it binds to 127.0.0.1 on port 8000, accessible at http://127.0.0.1:8000/. A developer can specify a custom address and port, for example python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000 to listen on all interfaces. The command automatically reloads the code when files change, and it can be stopped with Ctrl-C.

Key features include development-friendly behavior such as automatic reloading and a simple static file handling workflow during DEBUG mode. Options commonly encountered with runserver include --noreload to disable auto-reloading, --nothread to run in a single-threaded mode, --nostatic to disable built-in static file serving, and --insecure to serve static files when DEBUG is False. Additional Django management options, such as --settings or --pythonpath, can also be used to customize the running environment.

Limitations and deployment considerations: runserver is not designed for production use. It lacks the robustness, security, and performance characteristics required for publicly accessible sites. For production deployments, Django projects are typically served by a WSGI server (e.g., Gunicorn or uWSGI) behind a reverse proxy such as Nginx or Apache.