Deploy Serverless Express Application to Vercel
Last Updated :
07 May, 2023
Vercel is a serverless cloud-based hosting solution to host front-end and serverless applications. Express is a Node.JS framework and deploying serverless express application aids cost-cutting to nearly zero. Although the traditional way of deploying to the server is expensive and there is a limit on API calls plus you may need backend developers when the product is Scaled to a higher level. Therefore, we must learn how to deploy the serverless express application to Vercel.
Features of Vercel:
- Deploying on Vercel is easy for developers.
- Auto production deployment when code is merged with the main branch on GitHub.
- You can monitor the analytics of your website visually.
- You can add a custom domain to it after you purchase the domain on Vercel or configure DNS records.
- Build logs are available for developers to track their source code in production.
- Provide Serverless functions feature that can automatically scale up when traffic increases on your website.
Prerequisites: Node.js must be installed. If you haven’t installed it yet, please refer to this article.
Steps to set up Vercel Account:
Go to the Vercel Website and Register with your Email or through your GitHub account.
Steps to build simple node.js express application:
- Make a folder on your Desktop, and open it. Initialize it to build the package.json file through the following command.
npm init -y
npm install express
- Make a folder named api and an index.js file inside that folder. The api folder will contain your server-side code. Let’s create a simple Nodejs-express web API. (copy and paste below simple express.js code snippet).
Javascript
const express = require( 'express' )
const app = express()
app.get( '/api' ,(req,res)=>{
res.send(`<h5 style= "color:green" >
Hey Geek! you just deployed serverless express api</h5>`)
})
app.listen(8080,()=>{
})
module.exports=app
|
- Now paste the following script to the vercel.json file.
{
"rewrites": [{
"source": "/api/(.*)",
"destination": "/api"
}]
}
- Run the API locally at localhost:8080/api
node api/index
- install Vercel CLI globally on your device using the following command:
npm i -g vercel
- Check if Vercel is installed in your system by the following command.
vercel --version
- Then login to your Vercel account through this Vercel CLI command.
vercel login
- Now deploy the serverless express application to Vercel, and write the following command to the terminal.
vercel
The command will show the latest Vercel version and ask the following questions:
- Set up and deploy “~/projectname”? [Y/n]:
- Which scope do you want to deploy to?
- Link to an existing project? [y/n]
- What’s your project name?
- In which directory is your code located?
- Want to override the settings? [y/n]
Further, if you want to deploy it to the production run the command:
vercel --prod
After the above deployment process is done, visit the Vercel website and your project will be deployed there.
example: https://geeksapi-panwarayush.vercel.app/api
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