Deployment

Orca gives you many possible deployment options for your project. It can be deployed on hosting servers such as AWS, Google Cloud, Digital Ocean, and others.

When thinking about deployment, you need to keep in mind that the Orca app consists of three core services:

• MongoDB Database.
• API, Express server.
• Frontend, Next.js application.

API and Frontend services can be deployed to any hosting provider that supports Node.js.

Configuration

Since services can run on different servers, domains, or ports after the deployment, you need to edit the configuration files so they can point to each other.

API Configuration

For the API service, you need to edit the following environment variables in its .env file.

packages/orca-api/.env

API_PORT=4000API_URL=https://api.getorca.orgNODE_ENV=production
FRONTEND_URL=http://localhost:3000
MONGO_URL=mongodb://username:password@localhost:27017/orca?authSource=admin

• API_PORT A Port that is used by the API server. The PORT env variable can override it since some hosting providers set the PORT env variable by default.
• API_URL URL of the API. For example, the demo app's API service runs on the https://api.getorca.org URL.
• NODE_ENV Tell the app that it runs on the production environment.
• FRONTEND_URL URL of the frontend app. For example, the demo app's frontend runs on the https://community.getorca.org URL.
• MONGO_URL MongoDB Connection String URI format. Containing username, password, port, and the name of the database.

Frontend Configuration

For the Frontend service, you just need to edit the API_PRODUCTION_URL variable in the packages/frontend/utils/config.ts before building the app.

packages/frontend/utils/config.ts

const API_PRODUCTION_URL = 'https://api.getorca.org';const API_DEV_URL = 'http://localhost:4000';

Deployment using PaaS

Probably, the easiest way to deploy an Orca app is to use PaaS (Platform as a service) provider since it does not require DevOps skills, and the webserver is already configured for you.

• For the API service, you can use Heroku, Google App Engine, Digital Ocean App Platform, or any other provider that supports Node.js.
• For the Frontend service, you can use Vercel as it is a Next.js application.
• For MongoDB, you can use MongoDB Atlass database as a service.

Most of the providers offer free plans. That is OK for testing purposes and MVPs. Although, for more serious business-focused apps, the performance and limitations of free plans won't be enough for you.

PaaS providers cost more than IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) providers, as it adds more value by removing the server configuration and management. Still, it might be cost-effective for you if you don't have DevOps skills and/or you simply want to focus only on app development.

Deployment using IaaS

You can deploy an Orca app on any Iaas Provider: AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Digital Ocean, and many more. However, you'll need basic DevOps skills to configure and manage the server.

For instance, The demo app is deployed on a single Digital Ocean droplet. The droplet contains and runs all the services: MongoDB database, API, and frontend.