This project needs a "server" that runs 24/7 to collect data around the clock.

The system won't really produce that much data, but it does need to be collected often.

A low power system is adequate, and I have a couple of Raspberry Pi computers handy.

One of them gets to be my soil moisture data collection server.

I've decided to use NGINX as the web server to host the Django stuff, and PostGres to store the data.

If you think that sounds like a good way to shred an SD card, I'd have to agree.

This Pi has a solid state disk attached via USB.  The SD card is only for booting - no worries about wearing out the SD card.

Planned software on the Pi:

1. NGINX
2. PostGres (with PostGIS)
3. An MQTT server
4. Django
5. Django based program for managing the data collection
6. A Python MQTT client as a bridge between MQTT and Django

I'll be writing parts 5 (management system) and 6 (MQTT to Django bridge.)

I'll do the development on my desktop computer, pushing it to one of my github repositories.  The Pi will just pull a local copy and run from that.