How to view the local 127.0.0.1 django web server running on the digital ocean droplet from my computer

You can have the django service listen on your public IP by starting it with a command like:

./manage.py runserver [your ip]:8080

For production, putting something like nginx in front of your app is a better idea. You can do this by first installing nginx

sudo apt-get update;
sudo apt-get install nginx;

and then updating your /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default file to read:

server {

        listen 80 default_server;
        listen [::]:80 default_server;

        root /var/www/html;

        index index.html index.htm;

        server_name _;

        location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }

}

Then, restarting nginx:

service nginx restart

Now you’ll be able to browse to your droplet’s IP (without specifying a port) and view your django application.