Choosing the Right Strategy for Basic vs Premium Features in Django

When you're building a Django app and want to offer different features to different user groups — like Basic and Premium — it's natural to wonder:

Should I separate users using Django Multisite? Or even spin up separate Docker containers per plan?

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Spoiler: You don’t need that much complexity — and here’s why.

✅ Problem Overview

Let’s say you're building an e-commerce platform, SaaS tool, or any web app, and you want:

Basic users to access only core features.
Premium users to unlock advanced dashboards, analytics, tools, etc.
A future-ready system that supports upgrades/downgrades.

❌ Don't Use Multisite or Docker for This

It’s tempting to think you need:

Django Multisite (used to serve different domains with different content).
Docker containers per plan (used in multi-tenant SaaS with full isolation).

But for most cases where you’re just limiting access to certain features — these are overkill.

✅ The Right Approach: Role-Based Access in One Django App

A single Django project, with logic based on the user’s plan or role, is all you need.

🧱 Step 1: Add a Plan Field to User or Profile

class UserProfile(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    PLAN_CHOICES = (
        ('basic', 'Basic'),
        ('premium', 'Premium'),
    )
    plan = models.CharField(max_length=20, choices=PLAN_CHOICES, default='basic')

You can attach this model to your users via signals or use a custom user model.

🧠 Step 2: Check Plan in Views

@login_required
def premium_feature(request):
    if request.user.userprofile.plan != 'premium':
        return redirect('upgrade')
    return render(request, 'premium/feature.html')

🎨 Step 3: Hide Premium Features in Templates

{% if request.user.userprofile.plan == 'premium' %}
    <a href="{% url 'premium_feature' %}">Premium Analytics</a>
{% else %}
    <a href="{% url 'upgrade' %}">Upgrade to Premium</a>
{% endif %}

💳 Step 4: Integrate Payments (Optional)

Use Stripe or PayPal to allow users to upgrade and automatically update their plan.

Tools:

dj-stripe
django-paypal
Custom webhook views for subscription events

🔧 Optional: Feature Flags for Granular Control

Use a package like django-waffle to enable/disable specific features or even do A/B testing.

📊 Bonus: Admin Tools

Add an admin page or dashboard to:

View users by plan
Manually upgrade or downgrade users
Track feature usage per plan

🏁 TL;DR

Strategy	Use it when...
Role-based logic	You just want to separate features by plan
Django multisite	You serve different content on multiple domains
Docker containers per user group	You want complete app/database isolation (SaaS, enterprise)

🚀 Conclusion

You can build a powerful freemium business model with just one Django app.
Start simple with role-based access, then scale up when you truly need isolation.

Need help implementing this in your own Django project? I’d love to help!