How To Use MS SQL Server with Django on Windows

To use MS SQL Server as the database for your Django application, follow these steps:

1. Install Required Packages

Django does not support SQL Server out of the box, so you need a third-party database backend:

After setting up and activating virtual environment, install Django, then install mssql-django

pip install mssql-django

2. Update DATABASES in settings.py

Open your Django project’s settings.py and configure the DATABASES setting:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'mssql',
        'NAME': 'your_db_name',
        'USER': 'your_db_user',
        'PASSWORD': 'your_db_password',
        'HOST': 'your_db_host',       # For local: 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1'
        'PORT': '1433',               # Default SQL Server port
        'OPTIONS': {
            'driver': 'ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server',  # Or 'ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server' if installed
        },
    }
}

3. Install ODBC Driver

Depending on your operating system, install the appropriate ODBC driver:

• Windows:
  • Install from: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/connect/odbc/download-odbc-driver-for-sql-server
• Ubuntu/Linux:

sudo su
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | apt-key add -
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/prod.list > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mssql-release.list
exit
sudo apt-get update
sudo ACCEPT_EULA=Y apt-get install -y msodbcsql17

4. Run Migrations

After updating your database settings:

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate