Django Cheroot

Django Cheroot lets you serve a Django project with Cheroot — the high-performance, pure-Python HTTP server that powers CherryPy — through a single manage.py cheroot management command.

It’s a small, dependency-light alternative to WSGI servers like Gunicorn or uWSGI. Because Cheroot is pure Python, it runs anywhere Python does (including Windows), with no C build toolchain and no extra process manager to wire up.

Key features

• One command — add the app to INSTALLED_APPS and run python manage.py cheroot. No config files, no separate launcher.
• Pure Python — Cheroot has no compiled extensions, so it installs and runs cleanly on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
• Tunable thread pool — control the minimum/maximum worker threads and the queued-connection backlog straight from the command line.
• Familiar WSGI — it serves the exact same WSGI application Django builds for any other server, so behavior matches production.

A 30-second taste

Install it:

pip install django-cheroot

Register the app in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...,
    "django_cheroot",
]

Serve your project:

python manage.py cheroot

That starts Cheroot on http://127.0.0.1:8000 serving your Django WSGI application.

Compatibility

	Supported
Django Cheroot	1.x
Python	3.8+
Django	4.2, 5.x, and 6.0
Cheroot	10+

Caution

Cheroot is a WSGI HTTP server, not a hardened edge server. For production it’s common to run it behind a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy) that terminates TLS and serves static files, the same way you would front Gunicorn.

Where to next

• Installation — install the package and register the app.
• Usage — run the cheroot command and its arguments.
• Configuration — every command-line option and its default.