Recommendations on deploying create-react-app with node backend

Question

I am trying to deploy my React app that uses a node.js express backend (running on a AWS EC2 instance). I am having trouble deciding how to deploy my React App to make sure it can fetch from the backend.

1. I can set my website example.com to direct to a AWS S3 static hosting that has my React app. In this case, I would have to have to hard code my ec2 public ip eg fetch(" http://12.35.143.34/api/users/1 ") in the React code.

2. I can set my website example.com to direct to an ec2 instance with Nginx that will direct /api calls to the server and any other type of calls to the S3 bucket.

I read different posts about both ways so I am confused on which way is right.

Edit: Or is there a third option such as an api subdomain?

Answer 1

My way :

1.deploy your node app to EC2 try to attach a DNS or just use the given one by aws - here

2.test your api using postman.

3.change the api url endpoint value to the api DNS

4.deploy (upload) your dist/ (build directory) - here

5.config the bucket to act as a static website host - here

6.(optional) try to configure the CloudFront to your bucket and get app dns - here

Answer 2

There are many ways to run a NodeJS based application on AWS. The best one for you depends on your case, and how your app is developed.

1. Use AWS Elastic Beanstalk

• It is a PaaS service that lets you run your application on top of AWS infrastructure, without you having to configure these services individually.
• Documentation

2. Use AWS Lambda + AWS API Gateway

• If your codebase supports it, this is a very scalable, cheap, and performant way to run your app.
• You might have to rewrite part of your code. It depends on how your backend is written. If you are using express , it is simple to migrate it to AWS Lambda.
• Migrating an Express Application to Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda

3. EC2 using ELB and Auto Scaling Groups .

• Regardless of the size of your application, you should run it with some level of high availability and load balancing.
• You shouldn't run your application on just one node; you should use an Auto Scaling Group.
• You shouldn't publish your EC2 instances directly on the Internet; you should use an Application Load Balancer.
• If your application uses a database, you should try to move it to RDS, and not run it by yourself.

And finally, to answer your question, I would recommend 3: you should use multiple CloudFront origins. Us an S3 bucket origin to hold the static data, and an ELB origin for the dynamic, non-cacheable content. Check this post for more information on how to do it .

If you own a domain, you can also create a certificate and serve your content through HTTPS, handled by CloudFront.

I hope it helps.