I Deployed the Node.js Server On Vercel for Free 🚀

Use Vercel for RESTFul API for free

3 min readNov 24, 2024

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Vercel is well-known for hosting static websites, but do you know, you can also deploy your Node.js server on it for free?

After Heroku discontinued its free service, I tried to find an alternative that provides free Node.js server hosting. Then I found Vercel, which I was using for my Next.js and React.js projects.

In this article, I will share how you can host your node js server on vercel for free-

Deploying a Node.js Server on Vercel

Follow these steps to deploy your server on vercel-

1. Create a Node.js Server Locally-

If you do not have your project started yet, then create a new Node.js server with Express.js-

Create a folder for your project-

mkdir my-vercel-node-server
cd my-vercel-node-server

Initialize a Node.js project-

npm init -y

Install Express-

npm install express

Create a file index.js-

// index.js
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 3000;

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello from Vercel Node.js Server!');
});

app.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`Server running on port ${PORT}`);
});

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2. Create Vercel.json

{
    "version": 2,
    "builds": [
      {
        "src": "./index.js",
        "use": "@vercel/node"
      }
    ],
    "routes": [
      {
        "src": "/(.*)",
        "dest": "/"
      }
    ]
  }

3. Push the Code to GitHub-

Create a GitHub repository and push your code-

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"

git remote add origin https://github.com/yourusername/your-repo-name.git
git push -u origin master

3. Deploying to Vercel

Sign Up/Login: Go to Vercel and create an account if you haven’t yet.
Import Project: Click “New Project” and import your GitHub repository.
Configure Build and Output Settings:

Framework Preset: Choose “Other”.
Build Command: Leave it empty unless you have a build process.
Output Directory: Leave it empty for default settings.
Environment Variables: Add any necessary environment variables like API keys.

4. Deploy and Test the Server

Click “Deploy”. The deployment will take a few seconds.
Once deployed, Vercel will provide you with a URL (e.g., https://your-project.vercel.app).
Test your server by visiting the URL.

Conclusion

Vercel provides a quick, free and scalable hosting solution for backend projects. It simplifies the deployment process with GitHub integration. Vercel also provides a free subdomain and SSL for your API.

I have been using this for long and found it very useful. What about you, let me know in the comments.

Sample Project: https://github.com/gyanendraknojiya/vercel-node-server

Vercel URL: https://vercel-node-server-zeta.vercel.app

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