Exporing deployment options in the Cloud (mainly from the context of deploying React and Vue apps)
[Full disclosure: I have never seen "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" but the title stuck with me.]
While researching competitors to AWS S3 for hosting my ReactAWS repo, I ended up trying out many of them. Which didn't really fit into the goals of that particular project - which was to explore deploying a minimal React scaffold to AWS.
Depending upon your deployment requirements, any of the following may be an option:
[Many of them have free options. Most will require installing a CLI tool.]
Bitbucket Cloud is a Bitbucket option (Bitbucket is one of the Atlassian companies).
Like both GitHub and GitLab, Bitbucket has a deployment option.
Firebase was acquired by Google in 2014.
Firebase helps mobile and web app teams succeed
From: http://firebase.google.com/
Features React Firebase.
Definitely worth a look for Mobile, known for authentication and Crashlytics.
As perhaps might be expected, their firebase CLI is exceptionally useful.
Check out my demo Vue.js app deployed to Firebase at: https://vuerender-f8354.web.app/ or https://vuerender-f8354.firebaseapp.com/
GitHub Pages are pretty straightforward.
Check out my Corkboard repo deployed on GitHub Pages: https://mramshaw.github.io/Corkboard/
GitLab Pages seem to be pretty much the same thing as GitHub Pages, but for GitLab of course.
Heroku is owned by Salesforce.com and offers a number of attractive services.
It uses containers, which are referred to as dynos: http://www.heroku.com/dynos
Deploying to Heroku can be a little bit complicated.
Netlify is very easy to use, so a pretty good option.
Of course, Netlify are known for defining Jamstack.
So, not surprisingly, Netlify is really optimal for Jamstack deployments.
Check out my ReactAWS scaffold deployed on Netlify: https://compassionate-sinoussi-40e0e0.netlify.com/
Render seems to be an interesting alternative to Heroku, probably worth investigating.
They offer a summary of how Render differs from Heroku:
http://render.com/render-vs-heroku-comparison
One difference:
Heroku customers running production and staging workloads typically see cost reductions of over 50% after switching to Render
And:
Heroku serves all content over HTTP/1.1. However, major browsers have supported HTTP/2 since 2015. Render serves all requests over HTTP/2, falling back to HTTP/1.1 for older clients. This minimizes simultaneous connections to your Render apps and reduces page load times for all your users.
[Both quotes are from the Render web page. Other differences between the two services are also listed.]
Note that Render can integrate with either a GitHub repo or a GitLab repo.
These appear to be the only deployment options available (for now?).
Apart from the GitHub / GitLab root repo proviso, seems like a nice service.
Note that - at the free level - the Let's Encrypt site certificate expires in three (3) months.
Stackbit describe themselves as:
THE BEST WAY TO JAMSTACK
[I am including them here for completeness, but they are probably only for Jamstack deployments.]
Surge appears to be for static websites only, so perhaps not suitable for React.
Surge describes themselves as:
Static web publishing for Front-End Developers
From: http://surge.sh/
[Note the Static part.]
And:
Surge has been built from the ground up for native web application publishing and is committed to being the best way for Front-End Developers to put HTML5 applications into production.
From: http://surge.sh/help/getting-started-with-surge
[Zeit is sometimes referred to as simply Now.]
ZEIT Now is a cloud platform for static frontends and serverless functions. It enables developers to host websites and web applications that deploy instantly, scale automatically, and require no supervision.
From: http://github.com/zeit/now/tree/master/examples
Some useful reference notes follow.
Jamstack (formerly known as JAMstack) is an architecture defined by Mathias Biilmann (CEO & Co-founder of Netlify):
A modern web development architecture based on client-side JavaScript, reusable APIs, and prebuilt Markup
[The JAM in Jamstack stands for Javascript, APIs, and Markup. So ... somewhat more than a static website.]
It’s a new way of building websites and apps that delivers better performance, higher security, lower cost of scaling, and a better developer experience.
From: http://jamstack.org/
Check out Jamstack examples here: http://jamstack.org/examples/
[Incidentally, Jamstack sites are considered by AWS to be well-architected.]
To achieve optimal efficiency and cost reduction, Jamstack sites require a CDN.
Jamstack sites are serverless:
The thing that they all have in common is that they don’t depend on a web server.
From: http://jamstack.org/
While Jamstack sites are effectively serverless, Jamstack itself is not considered to be serverless.
- Add links to a Vue.js app deployed on Firebase
- Add link to a React.js app deployed on GitHub Pages
- Add more details on Render versus Heroku
- Remove link to deleted Heroku deployment (Heroku is no longer free)
- Remove link to deleted Render deployment
- Investigate Twelve-factor options
- Add more notes on cloud deployment options