How to migrate data from SQLite to PostgreSQL in Django

This post cross-published with OnePublish

Hi DEVs! In this post I want to talk about differences between SQLite and PostgreSQL. In addition, I will show you how to migrate your data from SQLite to PostgreSQL.

Well, SQLite and PostgreSQL are the most widely used relational database management systems. They are both open-source and free. However, they have some major differences that should be considered when choosing a database to use for your applications.

There is a lot articles on internet which covers this topic, so I will not focus on comparison of these databases.

SQLite vs PostgreSQL - Which database to use and why?

SQLite vs MySQL vs PostgreSQL: A Comparison Of Relational Database Management Systems

SQLite is too "light" for real world applications, so majority of developers prefer to use MySQL or PostgreSQL for web applications. Generally, SQLite is highly useful for:

• Standalone apps
• Small apps that don’t require expansion
• Apps need to read or write files to disk directly
• The internet of things devices
• Developing and even testing

and PostgreSQL is recommended when:

• Data integrity and reliability is highly concerned.
• Custom Procedures which is extensible to run the complex task.
• Complexity with ease. PostgreSQL gives you the functionality to maintain such a complex database smoothly without limitations.

Migrate data from SQLite to PostgreSQL

Dump existing data:

python3 manage.py dumpdata > datadump.json

Change settings.py to Postgres backend. Check this awesome tutorial by Digital Ocean:

How To Use PostgreSQL with your Django Application on Ubuntu

Make sure you can connect on PostgreSQL. Then:

python3 manage.py migrate --run-syncdb

Run this on Django shell to exclude contentype data

python3 manage.py shell

>>> from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
>>> ContentType.objects.all().delete()
>>> quit()

Finally, run following command to load the json data:

python3 manage.py loaddata datadump.json

Great! Now, your all data migrated from SQLite to PostgreSQL.

There is also interesting question on StackOverflow about MySQL vs PostgreSQL.

MySQL vs PostgreSQL? Which should I choose for my Django project?

Feb 25 '09 Comments: 1 Answers: 10

78

My Django project is going to be backed by a large database with several hundred thousand entries, and will need to support searching (I'll probably end up using djangosearch or a similar project.)

Which database backend is best suited to my project and why? Can you recommend any good resources…

Open Full Question

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