For modern Django (>=1.9) @hynecker‘s answer is better.
For Django >= 1.8 you can use an annotation and the Length function:
from django.db.models.functions import Length
qs = MyModel.objects.annotate(text_len=Length('text_field_name')).filter(
text_len__gt=10)
Under the hood, Django uses is @Pratyush’s suggested CHAR_LENGTH()
MariaDB (MySQL) function. But the Django Length
function will work for any Django-compatible db by using LENGTH()
for Postgres and other databases.