Django Dummy Database

A fully-featured dummy database backend for Django that allows running all standard Django apps (admin, auth, contenttypes, etc.) without a real database.

Features

• 🚀 Run Django with all standard apps - no database required
• 💾 In-memory storage - data persists during runtime
• 🔄 Full transaction support simulation
• 📊 Works with migrations - creates tables in memory
• 🎯 Compatible with Django 3.2+
• 🛡️ All database exceptions properly defined
• 🔧 No configuration changes needed - just swap the database backend

Installation

pip install django-dummy-database

Usage

Simply change your DATABASES setting in settings.py:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django_dummy_database',
        'NAME': 'dummy_db',
    }
}

That's it! You can keep all your standard Django apps:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # your apps...
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
]

How It Works

The backend creates an in-memory storage that:

• Initializes all system tables (django_content_type, auth_user, etc.)
• Simulates SQL queries and returns appropriate results
• Maintains sequences for auto-increment fields
• Supports transactions, savepoints, and all standard database operations
• Handles migrations by creating tables in memory

Use Cases

• Development: Work without setting up a real database
• Testing: Run tests faster without database overhead
• CI/CD: Simplify continuous integration pipelines
• Demos: Create portable demo applications
• Static Sites: Build Django sites that don't need persistent storage

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• Django 3.2+

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.