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Separate development environment

I have a web app that is now customer facing running on pythonanywhere. I still have lots to add and develop on this app and I am looking g for the best way to work on my code in Python anywhere without interrupting my customer's experience. I am thinking something like a 2nd identical database and directory. Maybe there is a more elegant solution?

What is the best way to go about doing this?

Hi there,

I would set up a separate (maybe free?) development account where you do all the development, and use git push/pull to sync between the development and live accounts.

For the database, you could for example use mysqldump to create an "identical" database that you can work on without fear of affecting customer data.

Hello, I have a similar issue, need to set up a development environment for testing updates before moving to live app. Is setting up a separate Python Anywhere account still the best way to go? thanks

Yes, I think so -- you could have it within the same account, but it would increase the risk of you accidentally changing the wrong environment. In general its best to keep dev and production as separate as possible -- for our own development of PythonAnywhere we use completely separate VPCs on Amazon AWS, for example.

Great, thanks for the quick response Giles.