Django's built-in admin is incredibly powerful and highly customizable. However, customizing it from scratch can be time-consuming and daunting. Fortunately, there's an amazing package to address this issue: django-unfold. Built on top of Tailwind CSS, it’s not only powerful but also polished and highly customizable.

In this post, I’ll walk you through what django-unfold is, how to integrate it into your project, and how it can make managing your Django admin more intuitive.

What is django-unfold?

Unfold is a theme for the Django admin interface that incorporates best practices for building full-fledged admin areas. It is designed to enhance and extend the default administration features provided by Django.

Why Use It?

• Highly Customizable
• Polished Look
• Dark Mode: Supports both light and dark mode versions.
• Responsive Design
• And Many More

For more details, visit their official website.

Getting Started

Step 1: Install django-unfold

Install the package via pip:

pip install django-unfold

Step 2: Configure INSTALLED_APPS

Add unfold to your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "unfold",  # Add this before django.contrib.admin
    "django.contrib.admin",
]

Step 3: Apply django-unfold to Your Admin Models

In your app's admin.py, use django-unfold like this:

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import Doctor
from unfold.admin import ModelAdmin as UnfoldModelAdmin


@admin.register(Doctor)
class DoctorAdmin(UnfoldModelAdmin):
    pass

If you want to customize filters and other admin options, you can do so like this:

@admin.register(Doctor)
class DoctorAdmin(UnfoldModelAdmin):
    list_display = (
        "first_name",
        "last_name",
        "specialization",
        "years_of_experience",
        "available",
        "date_joined",
    )
    list_filter = ("specialization", "available", "gender")
    search_fields = ("first_name", "last_name", "email", "phone")

Example: Before and After

Below is an example of how django-unfold transforms the default Django admin theme:

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