Why is it suggested to use a different service to host static files (like nginx or apache) for django?

Question

I've seen many questions on stackoverflow about handling static files in django during deployment. I saw that many answers said something like this - "With debug turned off Django won't handle static files for you any more - your production web server (Apache or something) should take care of that." Why can't we use the server hosting the django project to host the static files too?

Answer 1

Static files don't require any kind of logic or processing. It is more efficient to deliver them directly to the end-user directly from disk via a web server, rather than running them through the middle layer of Django. That middle layer (such as gunicorn, uwsgi, or mod_wsgi) is what allows things like views to be processed and for the ORM to connect with a database. Since static files require none of that, bypassing it is the most efficient. The same is true for media files that are uploaded by the end user. Good luck!