django-cursor-pagination

What it is and what it does

django-cursor-pagination provides a cursor-based pagination system for Django querysets as an alternative to traditional offset-based pagination. Instead of requesting page numbers, you navigate by passing cursor tokens that represent positions in the result set, asking for records after or before a given cursor. This approach prevents data shifts when new records are inserted and avoids expensive large-offset database queries.

The package requires that ordering fields be unique across all records—typically achieved by ordering on a timestamp and an ID. It supports both synchronous and asynchronous pagination, and handles forward and reverse navigation. The trade-off is that you cannot easily determine the total number of pages or jump to arbitrary positions in the dataset, making it best suited for infinite-scroll or feed-style interfaces rather than traditional paginated navigation.

Use it for:

• Building infinite-scroll feeds or timelines where new content is constantly added
• Implementing Relay-style pagination for API endpoints
• Paginating large datasets efficiently without expensive offset calculations
• Creating mobile-friendly APIs that fetch data incrementally as users scroll
• Ensuring consistent pagination results when database records are inserted between requests

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Implements cursor-based pagination for Django querysets, allowing navigation through large result sets using cursor tokens instead of page offsets.

Yes, if you need cursor-based pagination for Django. The package is production-stable, actively maintained, has no security vulnerabilities, zero dependencies, and solves a real problem for feed-style interfaces. Install it if you're building an API with infinite scroll or Relay-style pagination; skip it if you need traditional page-number navigation or total-count information.

Install

django-cursor-pagination on PyPI

pip install django-cursor-pagination

uv add django-cursor-pagination

poetry add django-cursor-pagination

Installing django-cursor-pagination

Before you install

Low friction: no runtime dependencies, pure Python wheel distribution. Repository is active with recent commits and production-stable classification.

License in practice

BSD permissive license allows commercial use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart

pip install django-cursor-pagination

from django_cursor_pagination import CursorPaginator

qs = Post.objects.all()
paginator = CursorPaginator(qs, ordering=('-created', '-id'))
page = paginator.page(first=10, after=cursor)
has_next = page.has_next
last_cursor = paginator.cursor(page[-1])

Ordering fields must uniquely identify objects across the entire queryset; NULL values are sorted to the end regardless of ASC/DESC direction.

Verify before relying

• Whether async support (apage method) works with all Django versions listed in classifiers
• Performance characteristics compared to offset pagination at very large dataset sizes
• Compatibility with custom database backends beyond standard PostgreSQL/MySQL

Package facts

Evidence: django_cursor_pagination-0.3.0-py3-none-any.whl

Tags

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