🧶 I Built a Production-Ready Blogging Platform with Django, DRF & Supabase

I wanted to go beyond a basic CRUD app.

So I built StitchTales — a full-stack blogging platform designed for creators to publish tutorials and stories, complete with authentication, REST APIs, image storage, and production deployment.

🔗 Live: https://stitchtales.up.railway.app
🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/sneh1117/stitchtales

🏗 Tech Stack

• Django 5.2
• Django REST Framework
• PostgreSQL (Railway)
• Supabase Storage (custom backend)
• HTMX
• Whitenoise
• Token + session authentication

✨ What It Supports

• Full blog CRUD with draft → publish workflow
• Slug-based URLs + SEO fields
• Categories, tags, view tracking
• Comment moderation + like system (HTMX)
• Profile system with avatars + social links
• Public REST API with permission control
• Production-ready deployment on Railway

🔌 API Design

GET    /api/posts/
GET    /api/posts/<slug>/
POST   /api/posts/
PUT    /api/posts/<slug>/
DELETE /api/posts/<slug>/
POST   /api/auth/token/

Design decisions:

• Public read access
• Authenticated write access
• Author-only updates/deletes
• Slug-based lookups instead of IDs
• Pagination enabled

🖼 Why Supabase Instead of S3?

Instead of AWS, I built a custom Django storage backend for Supabase.

This required:

• Understanding Django’s storage API
• Handling server-side uploads securely
• Generating public CDN URLs
• Structuring bucket organization cleanly

It kept the stack simple while still being production-capable.

⚡ Why HTMX Instead of React?

I intentionally avoided a heavy frontend framework.

HTMX gave me:

• Dynamic likes without reload
• Cleaner backend focus
• Simpler architecture
• Faster development

Right tool for the project size.

🧠 Production Considerations

• Environment-based configuration
• SQLite locally, PostgreSQL in production
• CSRF + trusted origins configured
• DEBUG=False in production
• Whitenoise for static files
• Sitemap + robots.txt for SEO

I treated it like a real deployment — not just a localhost demo.

🚀 What I’d Add Next

• Automated tests
• CI/CD pipeline
• Redis caching
• Rate limiting
• Social auth
• Structured logging

🎯 Why This Project Matters

This wasn’t about crochet.

It was about demonstrating:

• Clean backend architecture
• Thoughtful API design
• External storage integration
• Production deployment awareness
• Full-stack decision-making

If you're hiring for a backend or full-stack role, I’d love feedback.

— Sneha