# Deployment
Strapi gives you many possible deployment options for your project or application. Strapi can be deployed on traditional hosting servers or services such as Heroku, AWS, Azure and others. The following documentation covers how to develop locally with Strapi and deploy Strapi with various hosting options.
::: tip
Deploying **databases** along with Strapi is covered in the [Databases Guide](../guides/databases.md).
:::
## Hosting Provider Guides
Manual guides for deployment on various platforms, for One-click and docker please see the [installation](../getting-started/installation.md) guides.
Amazon AWS
Step by step guide for deploying on AWS EC2
Azure
Step by step guide for deploying on Azure
DigitalOcean
Manual step by step guide for deploying on DigitalOcean droplets
Google App Engine
Manual step by step guide for deploying on GCP's App Engine
Heroku
Step by step guide for deploying on Heroku
## Optional Software Guides
Additional guides for optional software additions that compliment or improve the deployment process when using Strapi in a production or production-like environment.
Caddy
Overview of proxying Strapi with Caddy
HAP
HAProxy
Overview of proxying Strapi with HAProxy
Nginx
Overview of proxying Strapi with Nginx
## Application Configuration
### 1. Configure
We always recommend you use environment variables to configure your application based on the environment. Here is an example:
**Path —** `./config/server.js`.
```js
module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
host: env('APP_HOST', '0.0.0.0'),
port: env.int('NODE_PORT', 1337),
});
```
Then you can create a `.env` file or directly use the deployment platform you use to set environment variables:
**Path —** `.env`.
```
APP_HOST=10.0.0.1
NODE_PORT=1338
```
::: tip
To learn more about configuration you can read the documentation [here](../concepts/configurations.md)
:::
### 2. Launch the server
Before running your server in production you need to build your admin panel for production
:::: tabs
::: tab yarn
```bash
NODE_ENV=production yarn build
```
:::
::: tab npm
```bash
NODE_ENV=production npm run build
```
:::
::: tab Windows
```bash
npm install cross-env
```
Then in your `package.json` scripts section:
```bash
"production": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production npm run build"
```
:::
::::
Run the server with the `production` settings.
:::: tabs
::: tab yarn
```bash
NODE_ENV=production yarn start
```
:::
::: tab npm
```bash
NODE_ENV=production npm start
```
:::
::: tab Windows
```bash
npm install cross-env
```
Then in your `package.json` scripts section:
```bash
"production": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production npm start"
```
:::
::::
::: warning
We highly recommend using [pm2](https://github.com/Unitech/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:
```js
const strapi = require('strapi');
strapi(/* {...} */).start();
```
### Advanced configurations
If you want to host the administration on another server than the API, [please take a look at this dedicated section](../admin-panel/deploy.md).
Caddy
Overview of proxying Strapi with Caddy