Does Django Work With PlanetScale?

Fully CompatibleLast verified: 2026-02-20

Django works seamlessly with PlanetScale as a drop-in MySQL replacement using the standard MySQLdb backend.

Quick Facts

Compatibility

full

Setup Difficulty

Easy

Official Integration

No — community maintained

Confidence

high

Minimum Versions

Django: 3.2

How Django Works With PlanetScale

Django's built-in MySQL backend is fully compatible with PlanetScale since PlanetScale is MySQL 8.0 compatible. You configure PlanetScale as your database in Django's settings.py using the same mysql backend driver (mysqlclient or PyMySQL), pointing to PlanetScale's connection string. The integration is straightforward: create a PlanetScale account, provision a database, grab the connection credentials, and add them to your Django settings. PlanetScale's serverless architecture means you get automatic scaling without infrastructure management, while Django handles all ORM operations unchanged. The developer experience is excellent—you can use Django's full ORM, migrations, and management commands without modification. One architectural benefit is PlanetScale's branching feature, which integrates naturally with Django's migration system for testing schema changes in isolated branches before deploying to production.

Best Use Cases

→Rapid prototyping of Django projects without provisioning dedicated database servers

→Multi-branch development workflows where each git branch has a corresponding PlanetScale database branch for schema experimentation

→Scaling Django applications with variable traffic patterns that benefit from serverless auto-scaling

→SaaS platforms where PlanetScale's per-database isolation provides multi-tenant architecture benefits

Quick Setup

bash

pip install django mysqlclient python-dotenv

python

# settings.py
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
        'NAME': os.getenv('DB_NAME'),
        'USER': os.getenv('DB_USER'),
        'PASSWORD': os.getenv('DB_PASSWORD'),
        'HOST': os.getenv('DB_HOST'),  # e.g., 'xxx.us-east-2.psdb.cloud'
        'PORT': '3306',
        'OPTIONS': {
            'ssl': {'ca': '/path/to/ca.pem'},  # PlanetScale requires SSL
            'init_command': "SET sql_mode='STRICT_TRANS_TABLES'",
        }
    }
}

# .env file
DB_NAME=myapp
DB_USER=myuser
DB_PASSWORD=pscale_pw_xxx
DB_HOST=xxx.us-east-2.psdb.cloud

Known Issues & Gotchas

warning

PlanetScale doesn't support foreign key constraints by default (though it can be enabled)

Fix: Enable foreign keys in PlanetScale database settings or rely on application-level validation via Django models. Most Django projects work fine without database-level foreign keys.

warning

Connection timeouts during database branches or maintenance windows

Fix: Implement retry logic with libraries like django-db-retry or configure connection pooling. PlanetScale's query timeout is 30 seconds by default.

info

Large transaction handling can hit PlanetScale's transaction size limits

Fix: Break bulk operations into smaller batches using Django's bulk_create() with batch_size parameter or split long transactions.

Alternatives

•Django + AWS RDS MySQL: Traditional managed database with more control but requires more infrastructure setup
•Django + PostgreSQL (Render/Railway): Different SQL dialect but excellent Django support with modern features
•Django + Firebase Realtime Database: NoSQL approach trading relational features for real-time capabilities

Resources

docsPlanetScale Django Documentation docsDjango Database Configuration docsPlanetScale Connection Strings tutorialDjango with PlanetScale Tutorial

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