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Deployment

Page summary:

Deployment options cover hardware/software prerequisites, environment variable setup, and building the admin panel before launch. In the documentation: links to provider‑specific and advanced guides to help pick the right hosting strategy.

Strapi provides many deployment options for your project or application. Your Strapi applications can be deployed on traditional hosting servers or your preferred hosting provider.

The following documentation covers the basics of how to prepare Strapi for deployment on with several common hosting options.

Strapi Cloud

You can use Strapi Cloud to quickly deploy and host your project.

Tip

If you already created a content structure with the Content-Type Builder and added some data through the Content Manager to your local (development) Strapi instance, you can leverage the data management system to transfer data from a Strapi instance to another one.

Another possible workflow is to first create the content structure locally, push your project to a git-based repository, deploy the changes to production, and only then add content to the production instance.

Caution

For self-hosted Kubernetes deployments, we recommend using npm rather than pnpm. pnpm aggressive hoisting of dependencies can break native modules, such as mysql2— that your application may rely on. npm flatter, more predictable node_modules layout helps ensure native packages load correctly.

General guidelines​

Hardware and software requirements​

To provide the best possible environment for Strapi the following requirements apply to development (local) and staging and production workflows.

Before installing Strapi, the following requirements must be installed on your computer:

  • Standard build tools for your OS (the build-essentials package on most Debian-based systems)

  • Hardware specifications for your server (CPU, RAM, storage):

    HardwareRecommendedMinimum
    CPU2+ cores1 core
    Memory4GB+2GB
    Disk32GB+8GB

  • A supported database version:

DatabaseRecommendedMinimum
MySQL8.08.0
MariaDB10.610.5
PostgreSQL14.012.0
SQLite33
Database deployment

Deploying databases along with Strapi is covered in the databases guide.

  • A supported operating system:

    Operating SystemRecommendedMinimum
    Ubuntu (LTS)24.0420.04
    Debian11.x10.x
    RHEL10.x8.x
    macOS26.011.x
    Windows Desktop1110
    Windows ServerNot SupportedNot Supported

Application Configuration​


1. Configure​

We recommend using environment variables to configure your application based on the environment, for example:

/config/server.js

module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
  host: env('HOST', '0.0.0.0'),
  port: env.int('PORT', 1337),
});

Strapi generates a .env file with default values when you create a new project. You can edit this file or set variables in your chosen deployment platform (see example .env file):

HOST=10.0.0.1
PORT=1338
Tip

To learn more about configuration details, see the configurations documentation.

2. Launch the server​

Before running your server in production you need to build your admin panel for production:

NODE_ENV=production yarn build

Run the server with the production settings:

NODE_ENV=production yarn start
Caution

We highly recommend using pm2 to manage your process.

If you need a server.js file to be able to run node server.js instead of npm run start then create a ./server.js file as follows:

path: ./server.js

const strapi = require('@strapi/strapi');
strapi.createStrapi(/* {...} */).start();
Caution

If you are developing a TypeScript-based project you must provide the distDir option to start the server. For more information, consult the TypeScript documentation.

Health check endpoint

Strapi exposes a lightweight health check route at /_health for uptime monitors and load balancers. When the server is ready, it responds with an HTTP 204 No Content status and a strapi: You are so French! header value, which you can use to confirm the application is reachable. Hosting providers like Render can use this endpoint for automated health checks.

Advanced configurations​

If you want to host the administration on another server than the API, please take a look at this dedicated section.

Additional resources​

Prerequisites

The integrations page of the Strapi website include information on how to integrate Strapi with many resources, including how to deploy Strapi on the following 3rd-party platforms:


One-click deploy to Render​

Render offers a streamlined deployment experience for Strapi using Infrastructure-as-Code Blueprints. Click the button below to deploy a Strapi instance with a PostgreSQL database:

Deploy to Render

This Blueprint provisions:

  • A Node.js web service running Strapi (Starter plan)
  • A PostgreSQL database (Free plan)
  • Auto-generated secrets (APP_KEYS, JWT_SECRET, API_TOKEN_SALT, etc.)

For manual Render deployment, create a render.yaml file in your repository root:

render.yaml
services:
  - type: web
    name: strapi
    runtime: node
    plan: starter
    buildCommand: yarn install && yarn build
    startCommand: yarn start
    healthCheckPath: /_health
    envVars:
      - key: NODE_ENV
        value: production
      - key: HOST
        value: 0.0.0.0
      - key: DATABASE_CLIENT
        value: postgres
      - key: DATABASE_URL
        fromDatabase:
          name: strapi-db
          property: connectionString
      - key: APP_KEYS
        generateValue: true
      - key: API_TOKEN_SALT
        generateValue: true
      - key: ADMIN_JWT_SECRET
        generateValue: true
      - key: TRANSFER_TOKEN_SALT
        generateValue: true
      - key: JWT_SECRET
        generateValue: true

databases:
  - name: strapi-db
    databaseName: strapi
    plan: free

In addition, community-maintained guides for additional providers are available in the Strapi Forum. This includes the following guides:


The following external guide(s), not officially maintained by Strapi, might also help deploy Strapi on various environments:

Multi-tenancy

If you're looking for multi-tenancy options, the Strapi Blog has a comprehensive guide.

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