django-adminflow

A modern Django Admin UI template with built-in integrations for popular 3rd party packages.

AdminFlow is a drop-in Django Admin UI template that replaces the default Django admin with a clean, minimalist SaaS-grade interface. Beyond the UI refresh, it ships with ready-to-use integrations for the most popular Django ecosystem packages — two-factor authentication, per-record audit history, and multi-format import/export — so you get powerful admin features with zero boilerplate.

One package. Install it, add it to INSTALLED_APPS, and your admin instantly looks and works like a premium SaaS product.

What is AdminFlow?

The default Django admin is functional but dated. AdminFlow wraps it with:

• A modern, minimalist UI built with Tailwind utility classes and Material Symbols icons
• A collapsible sidebar with app grouping, icons per model, and active state tracking
• Responsive layouts — works on tablet and desktop
• Clean typography using Inter font (loaded from Google Fonts)
• Integrated 3rd party packages — install the extras you need, and the UI for them is already there

AdminFlow is not a full CMS replacement. It is a UI skin + integration layer for the Django admin you already use.

Screenshots

Login	Dashboard

Customer List	Change Form

Export Page	Audit History

Import Page	2FA / User Security

Features

Installation

# Core UI only
pip install django-adminflow

# With 2FA (django-otp)
pip install "django-adminflow[otp]"

# With audit history (django-simple-history)
pip install "django-adminflow[history]"

# With import / export (django-import-export)
pip install "django-adminflow[import-export]"

# Everything
pip install "django-adminflow[all]"

Setup — settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS

⚠️ "adminflow" must come before "django.contrib.admin"

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "adminflow",                              # ← FIRST, before django.contrib.admin
    "django.contrib.admin",
    "django.contrib.auth",
    "django.contrib.contenttypes",
    "django.contrib.sessions",
    "django.contrib.messages",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles",

    # Add only what you installed:
    "simple_history",                         # audit history
    "import_export",                          # import / export
    "django_otp",                             # 2FA core
    "django_otp.plugins.otp_totp",            # TOTP (Google Authenticator, Authy)
    "django_otp.plugins.otp_email",           # email one-time passwords
    "django_otp.plugins.otp_static",          # backup / recovery codes
]

MIDDLEWARE

MIDDLEWARE = [
    "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware",
    "django_otp.middleware.OTPMiddleware",                      # ← 2FA (after Auth)
    "django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware",
    "simple_history.middleware.HistoryRequestMiddleware",        # ← history
]

TEMPLATES — context processor (required)

⚠️ Without adminflow.context_processors.adminflow_settings, the sidebar title, colours and login panel will not render.

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        "BACKEND": "django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates",
        "DIRS": [],
        "APP_DIRS": True,
        "OPTIONS": {
            "context_processors": [
                "django.template.context_processors.request",
                "django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth",
                "django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages",
                "adminflow.context_processors.adminflow_settings",  # ← required
            ],
        },
    },
]

urls.py — 2FA Verification Route

If using 2FA (django-otp), add adminflow_verify_2fa_view to urls.py before admin.site.urls:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path
from adminflow.views import adminflow_verify_2fa_view

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/verify-2fa/', adminflow_verify_2fa_view, name='adminflow_verify_2fa'),
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
]

AdminFlow Settings

# ── Branding ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ADMINFLOW_TITLE   = "My App"          # sidebar header + browser tab title
ADMINFLOW_COMPANY = "My Company"      # admin footer text
# ADMINFLOW_LOGO  = "logo.svg"        # path relative to MEDIA_URL (optional)

# ── Login page hero ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ADMINFLOW_LOGIN_TITLE    = "Welcome back"
ADMINFLOW_LOGIN_SUBTITLE = "Sign in to manage your application."

# ── Theme colours ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ADMINFLOW_PRIMARY_COLOR             = "#1f2021"
ADMINFLOW_SECONDARY_COLOR           = "#475569"
ADMINFLOW_SUCCESS_COLOR             = "#10B981"
ADMINFLOW_WARNING_COLOR             = "#F59E0B"
ADMINFLOW_DANGER_COLOR              = "#EF4444"

# ── Sidebar ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ADMINFLOW_SIDEBAR_COLOR             = "#0f172a"   # background
ADMINFLOW_SIDEBAR_TEXT_COLOR        = "#94a3b8"   # inactive item text
ADMINFLOW_SIDEBAR_ACTIVE_TEXT_COLOR = "#ffffff"   # active item text
ADMINFLOW_SIDEBAR_COLLAPSIBLE       = True
ADMINFLOW_SIDEBAR_WIDTH             = 280         # pixels

# ── UI ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ADMINFLOW_BORDER_RADIUS             = "16px"
ADMINFLOW_FONT                      = "Inter"     # any Google Font name
ADMINFLOW_ENABLE_COMMAND_PALETTE    = True        # Cmd+K quick search

# ── 2FA ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ADMINFLOW_DJANGO_OTP = True    # show OTP verification screen after login

Email (for Email OTP)

EMAIL_BACKEND               = "django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend"
EMAIL_HOST                  = "smtp.gmail.com"
EMAIL_PORT                  = 587
EMAIL_USE_TLS               = True
EMAIL_HOST_USER             = "noreply@myapp.com"
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD         = "your-smtp-password"    # use .env, never commit
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL          = EMAIL_HOST_USER

OTP_EMAIL_SENDER            = EMAIL_HOST_USER
OTP_EMAIL_FROM_EMAIL        = EMAIL_HOST_USER
OTP_EMAIL_COOLDOWN_DURATION = 60    # seconds between OTP requests

3rd Party Integrations

🔒 Two-Factor Authentication — django-otp

# admin.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model
from django.contrib.auth.admin import UserAdmin as BaseUserAdmin
from adminflow.user_admin import AdminFlowUserAdminMixin, get_2fa_inlines, unregister_otp_models

User = get_user_model()

@admin.register(User)
class UserAdmin(AdminFlowUserAdminMixin, BaseUserAdmin):
    inlines = get_2fa_inlines()

unregister_otp_models()   # removes raw django-otp admin entries

What you get: TOTP + email OTP + backup codes, multi-device per user, admin bulk actions (Enable 2FA, Generate backup codes).

📜 Audit History — django-simple-history

# models.py
from simple_history.models import HistoricalRecords

class Customer(models.Model):
    name  = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    email = models.EmailField(unique=True)
    history = HistoricalRecords()   # ← add this

# admin.py
from simple_history.admin import SimpleHistoryAdmin

@admin.register(Customer)
class CustomerAdmin(SimpleHistoryAdmin):
    list_display = ('name', 'email')

📤 Import / Export — django-import-export

Add import_export to INSTALLED_APPS, then use MultiSheetExportImportMixin:

# resources.py
from import_export import resources, fields
from import_export.widgets import ForeignKeyWidget
from .models import Customer, Order

class CustomerResource(resources.ModelResource):
    class Meta:
        model  = Customer
        fields = ('id', 'name', 'email', 'phone', 'notes', 'date_created')

class OrderResource(resources.ModelResource):
    customer = fields.Field(
        column_name='customer_email',
        attribute='customer',
        widget=ForeignKeyWidget(Customer, field='email'),
    )
    class Meta:
        model  = Order
        fields = ('id', 'customer', 'product', 'order_date', 'status', 'total_amount')

# admin.py
from adminflow.import_export import MultiSheetExportImportMixin
from import_export.admin import ImportExportModelAdmin

@admin.register(Customer)
class CustomerAdmin(MultiSheetExportImportMixin, ImportExportModelAdmin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    combined_sheets = [
        ('General Details', CustomerResource, None),
        ('Orders', OrderResource, lambda qs: Order.objects.filter(customer__in=qs)),
    ]

Export formats:

JSON output example:

[
  {
    "id": "1",
    "name": "Alice Johnson",
    "email": "alice@example.com",
    "orders": [
      { "id": "1", "customer_email": "alice@example.com", "order_date": "2026-07-22", "status": "delivered" }
    ]
  }
]

Customisation

# admin.py — Material Symbols icon per model
@admin.register(Product)
class ProductAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    icon = "inventory_2"   # browse at fonts.google.com/icons

# apps.py — sidebar group label
class CrmConfig(AppConfig):
    name         = "crm"
    verbose_name = "Customer Relations (CRM)"

Changelog

v1.0.0 — 2026-07-23

• Initial stable release
• Modern minimalist admin UI (sidebar, Inter font, responsive)
• Full 2FA: TOTP, email OTP, backup codes, multi-device
• Audit history with field-level diffs (django-simple-history)
• Multi-sheet XLSX export/import (one sheet per related model)
• Nested JSON export (children embedded inside parent records)
• MultiSheetExportImportMixin for plug-and-play multi-resource export
• Styled Import / Export buttons, export page with field chips, import page
• All ADMINFLOW_* theme settings

Documentation

Full documentation: django-adminflow.readthedocs.io/en/latest

License

MIT