Django: using older version of postgresql

I want to develop a backend with Django and interact with a production database that runs PostgreSQL 12.X. Django 5, however, is only compatible with PostgreSQL 13+.

There are the options of

• writing direct SQL commands
• hacking Django to overwrite the version check
• downgrade Django by two major versions,

but I'm not happy with either of the solutions.

Is there a more elegant way of using PostgreSQL 12 with Django 5?

If you have Django 5.0, it supports PostgreSQL 12 and higher but from your error message, it seems like you have Django 5.1. Django 5.1 only supports PostgreSQL 13 and higher.

If you do not want to downgrade your Django, your other option would be to upgrade PostgreSQL to 13 or higher.