A full-stack online bookstore built with Python/Flask while learning backend web development — covering user authentication, shopping cart and order flow, ORM modeling, and cloud deployment on AWS EC2. The catalog contains 12,000 books with cover art sourced from the Open Library API.
Live Demo: devport.co.in
- User Authentication — Register, login from the landing page, and logout with Flask-Login and secure session management
- Password Reset — Users can reset their password by verifying their account details in-app
- Shopping Cart — Add, update, and remove books from a persistent cart tied to each user
- Order Management — Place orders, view order confirmation, and browse order history
- Book Catalog — Browse 12,000 books with cover images sourced from the Open Library Covers API
- Search & Filter — Find books by title, author, or genre
- Admin Panel — View and manage registered users; admin can delete user accounts
- Responsive UI — Mobile-friendly layout built with Bootstrap 5
- Cloud Deployed — Hosted on AWS EC2 with a custom domain and HTTPS
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Backend | Python, Flask |
| Database | PostgreSQL + SQLAlchemy ORM (2.0 style) |
| Auth | Flask-Login |
| Forms | Flask-WTF |
| Templating | Jinja2 |
| Frontend | Bootstrap 5, JavaScript |
| Deployment | AWS EC2 (Ubuntu), Gunicorn / Nginx |
| Book Covers | Open Library Covers API |
User ──< Order ──< OrderItem >── Book
User ──< Cart ──< CartItem >── Book
- User — Stores account credentials and profile info
- Book — Catalog of books with metadata and cover image references
- Cart — One active cart per user
- CartItem — Line items linking books to a cart with quantity
- Order — A confirmed purchase placed by a user
- OrderItem — Line items capturing book, quantity at time of order
- Python 3.10+
- PostgreSQL
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Veda-Swaroop/Flask_web_app.git
cd Flask_web_app
# Create and activate a virtual environment
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt
# Create a PostgreSQL database
createdb bookstore_db
# Configure environment variables
# Create and Edit .env file and fill in DATABASE_URL and SECRET_KEY
# Set up the database tables
flask db upgrade
# Run the development server
python run.pyVisit http://localhost:5000 in your browser.
FLASK_WEB_APP/
├── app/
│ ├── admin/ # Admin blueprint
│ │ ├── __init__.py
│ │ └── routes.py # View users, delete user accounts
│ ├── auth/ # Auth blueprint
│ │ ├── __init__.py
│ │ └── routes.py # Login, register, password reset
│ ├── main/ # Main blueprint
│ │ ├── __init__.py
│ │ └── routes.py # Catalog, book detail, cart, orders
│ ├── static/
│ │ ├── covers/ # Book cover images — not included in repo (see note below)
│ │ ├── images/ # App images for carousel
│ │ └── favicon.ico
│ ├── templates/
│ │ ├── layout.html # Base template
│ │ ├── index.html # Landing page with login form
│ │ ├── home.html # Main catalog / browse page (post-login)
│ │ ├── book_detail.html # Individual book page
│ │ ├── cart.html # Shopping cart
│ │ ├── order.html # Order summary
│ │ ├── order_confirmation.html # Post-purchase confirmation
│ │ ├── my_orders.html # User order history
│ │ ├── register.html # Registration form
│ │ ├── verify.html # Identity verification step for password reset
│ │ ├── reset.html # Password reset page
│ │ ├── logout.html # Logout confirmation
│ │ └── admin.html # Admin panel — user list and delete
│ ├── __init__.py # App factory
│ ├── extensions.py # Flask extensions (db, login_manager, migrate)
│ ├── forms.py # Flask-WTF form definitions
│ └── models.py # SQLAlchemy ORM models
├── migrations/ # Flask-Migrate migration files
├── .env # Environment variables (not committed)
├── .gitignore
├── LICENSE
├── run.py # Development entry point
└── wsgi.py # Production WSGI entry point (Gunicorn)
The app is deployed on AWS EC2 (Ubuntu) using:
- Gunicorn as the WSGI server (via
wsgi.py) - Nginx as the reverse proxy
- PostgreSQL running on the EC2 instance
- A custom domain with HTTPS via Let's Encrypt / Certbot
- Organized routes using Flask Blueprints (
admin,auth,main) for clean separation of concerns and maintainability - Managed Flask extensions in a dedicated
extensions.pyto avoid circular imports — a common pitfall in larger Flask apps - Used SQLAlchemy 2.0
Mapped/mapped_columnsyntax for type-safe, modern ORM models - Built a password reset flow in the auth blueprint — users verify their identity against the database and reset their password in-app
- The cart → order flow snapshots price at time of purchase in
OrderItem, protecting order history against future price changes - Book cover images (~8,000–9,000 images) were downloaded from the Open Library Covers API and served from
static/covers/— this folder is excluded from the repo due to GitHub storage limits (see note below) - Implemented toast notifications via JavaScript for cart actions without full page reloads
- Used the Post/Redirect/Get pattern on order confirmation to prevent duplicate order submissions on page refresh
The app/static/covers/ folder is not included in this repository. It contains ~8,000–9,000 cover images for the 12,000-book catalog, which exceeds GitHub's recommended repository size limits.
The covers were downloaded from the Open Library Covers API. To run the app locally with cover images:
- Create the folder:
app/static/covers/ - For each book in your database, fetch its cover from Open Library using its ISBN:
https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/{ISBN}-L.jpg - Save each image as
{bookID}.jpginside thecovers/folder
Books without a cover image will fall back to a placeholder automatically.
Login / Landing
Home / Catalog
Book Detail
Shopping Cart
Order Confirmation
Order History
This project is open source and available under the MIT License.