I've also recently desired faster tests with django, so I've switched to the 'nose' test runner, which allows DB reuse between runs: https://github.com/django-

I've also recently desired faster tests with django, so I've switched to the 'nose' test runner, which allows DB reuse between runs: https://github.com/django-nose/django-nose https://github.com/django-nose/django-nose It takes testing down from dozens of seconds to minutes in my case to a few seconds or even less. You just need to remember to run 'clean' (no REUSE_DB flag) once, and also remember that if you change your DB/have new migrations, run them and re-run the tests clean. Then you can can go back to reusing the DB again: Prime it: ./manage.py test mystuff --failfast -s -v0 Run it: REUSE_DB=1 ./manage.py test mystuff --failfast -s -v0 Ran 22 tests in 1.475s