- User authentication & profiles · social login ready
- Feed with infinite scroll (HTMX · no React needed)
- Real-time notifications via Django Channels
- Direct messaging system with delivery indicators
- Image upload & processing pipeline (Pillow + S3-compatible)
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OPEN SOURCE · DJANGO
SocialStarter
A production-ready Django starter kit for building social platforms. User profiles, real-time feeds, chat, notifications — everything you need to ship a social product without re-inventing the auth and websocket layer.
Django
HTMX
Redis
WebSockets
Tailwind
MIT licensed
Social Graph
Follow / unfollow system, user search, friend-of-friend suggestion algorithm baked in.
- Mutual follow detection
- User discovery API
- Privacy-aware queries
HTMX-powered UX
Dynamic interactions — likes, comments, infinite scroll — without bundling a heavy JS framework.
- Server-side rendering
- ~5 KB total JS
- Progressive enhancement
Real-time Chat
Django Channels + Redis pub/sub for instant messaging and live presence indicators.
- WebSocket-backed DMs
- Typing indicators
- Read receipts
- Backend: Django 4.2 · Python 3.11 · Django Channels
- Data: PostgreSQL 14 · Redis (cache + pub/sub)
- Frontend: HTMX · Alpine.js · Tailwind CSS · server-side rendered
- Infra: Docker Compose · Nginx · Gunicorn · Daphne (ASGI)
- Storage: S3-compatible · MinIO supported for self-hosted setups
Want a production version
tailored to your product?
SocialStarter is the open-source skeleton. If you need a fully customized social platform — auth flows, payments, custom feed algorithms, mobile apps — I build production SaaS on top of this foundation. Let's talk.