Django-Tailwind Just Got Better with a Unified Dev Command and daisyUI

I created Django-Tailwind back in 2019, at a time when most Djangonauts hadn’t even heard of Tailwind CSS. Since then, the package has grown in popularity, and although I’ve taken some longer breaks from maintaining it, I’ve always returned with renewed energy. That’s happened again recently—after the grueling task of adding support for Tailwind v4, I went quiet for a bit.

Fortunately, Django-Tailwind requires very little maintenance. When you install it in your project, it creates a basic Django app with a preconfigured package.json, and in most cases, you don’t need to update anything—unless you really want to.

Last weekend, I had a couple of spare evenings, so I decided to add a few new features to Django Tailwind that I believe will make it even more enjoyable to use.

Feature #1: A new tailwind dev command that runs both Tailwind watcher and the Django development server

This has been a long-standing request: How can I run both Tailwind and Django with a single command? Well, now you can—just run:

python manage.py tailwind dev

Both will start in a single terminal window.

This feature is powered by Honcho, an amazing package that has made my development workflow much easier over the years. With Honcho, you can create a Procfile that defines multiple processes and run them all at once with a single command. Brilliant!

Feature #2: Optional daisyUI support

Tailwind is fantastic for productivity—but what if you want to be even more efficient when building your UI? Enter daisyUI, which brings ready-made component class names to your project. Check out their component library—it’s huge!

From now on, when you generate a new Tailwind theme using:

python manage.py tailwind init

You’ll have the option to include daisyUI right from the start.

Feature #3: Easier installation of Tailwind plugins

Already generated your Tailwind theme without daisyUI and don’t want to go through the manual plugin setup? No worries—I’ve got you covered with the new tailwind plugin_install command.

Just type the following in your terminal, and daisyUI (or any other plugin, like @tailwindcss/typography) will be installed and configured automatically:

python manage.py tailwind plugin_install daisyui

And voilà—it's ready to use!

Those are the new features! I hope you find them useful. The latest release is v4.2.0, and you can find the project on GitHub here: https://github.com/timonweb/django-tailwind.

If Django-Tailwind saves you time or helps you ship faster, consider giving the repo a ⭐️—it really helps others discover the project and keeps the momentum going. Thanks for your support!