Heroku

This is a step-by-step guide for deploying a Strapi v3 or v4 project on Heroku (opens new window). Databases that work well with Strapi and Heroku are discussed in the instructions on how to get started.

Heroku Install Requirements

• You must have Git installed and set-up locally (opens new window).
• You must have a free Heroku account (opens new window) before doing these steps.

If you already have the Heroku CLI installed locally on your computer, skip to Login to Heroku.

1. Heroku CLI Installation

Download and install the Heroku CLI for your operating system:

Run the following from your terminal:

sudo snap install --classic heroku

Download the installer (opens new window)

Also available via Homebrew:

brew tap heroku/brew && brew install heroku

Download the appropriate installer for your Windows installation:

• 64-bit installer (opens new window)
• 32-bit installer (opens new window)

2. Login to Heroku from your CLI

Next, you need to login to Heroku from your computer.

heroku login

Follow the instructions and return to your command line.

3. Create a new project (or use an existing one)

Create a new Strapi project (if you want to deploy an existing project go to step 4).

Path: ./

💡 TIP

When you use --quickstart to create a Strapi project locally, a SQLite database is used which is not compatible with Heroku. Therefore, another database option must be chosen.

4. Update .gitignore

Add the following line at end of .gitignore:

Path: ./my-project/.gitignore

package-lock.json

Even if it is usually recommended to version this file, it may create issues on Heroku.

5. Init a Git repository and commit your project

Init the Git repository and commit your project.

Path: ./my-project/

cd my-project
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial Commit"

6. Create a Heroku project

Create a new Heroku project.

Path: ./my-project/

heroku create

You can use heroku create custom-project-name, to have Heroku create a custom-project-name.heroku.com URL. Otherwise, Heroku will automatically generate a random project name (and URL) for you.

💡 TIP

If you have a Heroku project app already created, you would use the following step to initialize your local project folder:

Path: ./my-project/

heroku git:remote -a your-heroku-app-name

Your local development environment is now set-up and configured to work with Heroku. You have a new Strapi project and a new Heroku app ready to be configured to work with a database and with each other.

7. Heroku Database set-up

Below you will find database options, when working with Heroku. Please choose the correct database (e.g. PostgreSQL) and follow those instructions.

Heroku Postgres

Follow these steps to deploy your Strapi app to Heroku using PostgreSQL:

1. Install the Heroku Postgres addon (opens new window) for using Postgres.

To make things even easier, Heroku provides a powerful addon system. In this section, you are going to use the Heroku Postgres addon, which provides a free "Hobby Dev" plan. If you plan to deploy your app in production, it is highly recommended switching to a paid plan.

Path: ./my-project/

heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev

2. Retrieve database credentials

The add-on automatically exposes the database credentials into a single environment variable accessible by your app. To retrieve it, type:

Path: ./my-project/

heroku config

This should print something like this: DATABASE_URL: postgres://ebitxebvixeeqd:dc59b16dedb3a1eef84d4999sb4baf@ec2-50-37-231-192.compute-2.amazonaws.com: 5432/d516fp1u21ph7b.

(This url is read like so: *postgres:// USERNAME : PASSWORD @ HOST : PORT / DATABASE_NAME*)

3. Set Database variables automatically

Strapi expects a variable for each database connection configuration (host, username, etc.). So, from the url above, Strapi will deconstruct that environment variable using pg-connection-string (opens new window) package. Heroku will sometimes change the above url, so it's best to automate the deconstruction of it, as Heroku will automatically update the DATABASE_URL environment variable.

Install the package:

4. Create your Heroku database config file for production

Create new subfolders in ./config like so: /env/production, then create a new database.js in it (see environment documentation). Your path should look like this: ./config/env/production/database.js. When you run locally you should be using the ./config/database.js which could be set to use SQLite, however it's recommended you use PostgreSQL locally also, for information on configuring your local database, please see the database documentation.

You also need to set the NODE_ENV variable on Heroku to production to ensure this new database configuration file is used.

heroku config:set NODE_ENV=production

5. Create your Strapi server config for production

Create a new server.js in a new env folder. In this file you only need one key, the url, to notify Strapi what our public Heroku domain is. All other settings will automatically be pulled from the default ./config/server.js.

You will also need to set the environment variable in Heroku for the MY_HEROKU_URL. This will populate the variable with something like https://your-app.herokuapp.com.

heroku config:set MY_HEROKU_URL=$(heroku info -s | grep web_url | cut -d= -f2)
heroku config:set APP_KEYS=$(cat .env | grep APP_KEYS | cut -d= -f2-)

6. Install the pg node module

Unless you originally installed Strapi with PostgreSQL, you need to install the pg (opens new window) node module.

Path: ./my-project/

8. Commit your changes

Path: ./my-project/

git add .
git commit -m "Update database config"

9. Update Yarn lockfile

Path: ./my-project/

yarn install

10. Commit your changes

Path: ./my-project/

git add yarn.lock
git commit -m "Updated Yarn lockfile"

11. Deploy

Path: ./my-project/

git push heroku HEAD:main

The deployment may take a few minutes. At the end, logs will display the url of your project (e.g. https://mighty-taiga-80884.herokuapp.com). You can also open your project using the command line:

Path: ./my-project/

heroku open

If you see the Strapi Welcome page, you have correctly set-up, configured and deployed your Strapi project on Heroku. You will now need to set-up your admin user as the production database is brand-new (and empty).

You can now continue with the Quick Start Guide, if you have any questions on how to proceed.

✋ CAUTION

For security reasons, the Content-type Builder plugin is disabled in production. To update content structure, please make your changes locally and deploy again.

Project updates

When Strapi is deployed to Heroku, Heroku sets the environment variable to NODE_ENV=production. In production mode Strapi disables the content-type builder (for security reasons). Additionally, if you wanted to change the default production mode in Heroku, it wouldn't work as the file system is temporary. Strapi writes files to the server when you update the content-types and these updates would disappear when Heroku restarts the server.

Therefore, modifications that require writing to model creation or other json files, e.g. creating or changing content-types, require that you make those changes on your dev environment and then push the changes to Heroku.

As you continue developing your application with Strapi, you may want to use version control (opens new window), or you can continue to use git push heroku HEAD:main to commit and push changes to Heroku directly.

Path: ./my-project/

git add .
git commit -am "Changes to my-project noted"
git push heroku HEAD:main
heroku open

File Uploads

Like with project updates on Heroku, the file system doesn't support local uploading of files as they will be wiped when Heroku "cycles" the dyno. This type of file system is called ephemeral (opens new window), which means the file system only lasts until the dyno is restarted (with Heroku this happens any time you redeploy or during their regular restart which can happen every few hours or every day).

Due to Heroku's filesystem you will need to use an upload provider such as AWS S3, Cloudinary, or Rackspace. You can view the documentation for installing providers here and you can see a list of providers from both Strapi and the community on npmjs.com (opens new window).

Gzip

As of version 3.2.1, Strapi uses koa-compress (opens new window) v5, which enables Brotli (opens new window) compression by default. At the time of writing, the default configuration for Brotli results in poor performance, causing very slow response times and potentially response timeouts. If you plan on enabling the gzip middleware, it is recommended that you disable Brotli or define better configuration params.

To disable Brotli, provide the following configuration in config/middleware.js.

gzip: {
  enabled: true,
  options: {
    br: false
  }
},

For more on Brotli configuration for koa-compress, reference this issue (opens new window).