Hosting with fly.io / Vercel / Netlify / Deno Deploy

[wiesson]

Does anyone have a working deployment config for fly.io, Vercel, Netlify or Deno Deploy? I'm struggling with node alpine and node-sass and other outdated dependencies :/

(For sake of simplicity, I'm using mongodb.com)

[jmikrut]

Hey @wiesson — I saw this mentioned in Discord as well and figured I'd just comment here for visibility.

Netlify and Vercel aren't good candidates for Express apps to be deployed on. Those platforms are best for serverless or fully static sites—while Payload requires an Express server.

Here's some info from Vercel on deploying Express apps:
https://vercel.com/guides/using-express-with-vercel

It seems like it can be done, but it's not recommended. If you get this working, I'd love to see an example!

Regarding Deno Deploy, that looks fascinating but I've never tried it. We generally suggest to deploy on either DigitalOcean Apps, Heroku, Render, or a DigitalOcean droplet where you can host your database, files, and server in one place.

We're actually working on Payload Cloud to make this entire experience easier and more seamless. I'll keep this thread updated once we have more info there.

[wiesson]

+1 for the Cloud solution, but it would be helpful if you provide basic examples for DO, Render or Heroku (I'd like to use Payload Cms now 😅).

[tomhatzer]

Hey!

I'm currently trying to get payloadcms up and running on vercel, but it seems like there are quite a few roadblocks ahead before being able to do so.

Right now I'm fighting with 2 exceptions:

(payload): Starting Payload...
2022-07-13T10:33:49.105Z	0b43aa1d-a214-4b74-ae47-b550b399572b	ERROR	Invoke Error 	{"errorType":"Error","errorMessage":"Cannot find module './lib/loader.js'\nRequire stack:\n- /var/task/node_modules/html-webpack-plugin/index.js\n- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/webpack/getBaseConfig.js\n- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/webpack/getDevConfig.js\n- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/webpack/init.js\n- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/express/admin.js\n- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/index.js\n- /var/task/dist/server.js\n- /var/task/dist/lambda.js\n- /var/task/___vc/__launcher.js\n- /var/runtime/index.mjs","code":"MODULE_NOT_FOUND","requireStack":["/var/task/node_modules/html-webpack-plugin/index.js","/var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/webpack/getBaseConfig.js","/var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/webpack/getDevConfig.js","/var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/webpack/init.js","/var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/express/admin.js","/var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/index.js","/var/task/dist/server.js","/var/task/dist/lambda.js","/var/task/___vc/__launcher.js","/var/runtime/index.mjs"],"stack":["Error: Cannot find module './lib/loader.js'","Require stack:","- /var/task/node_modules/html-webpack-plugin/index.js","- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/webpack/getBaseConfig.js","- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/webpack/getDevConfig.js","- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/webpack/init.js","- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/express/admin.js","- /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/index.js","- /var/task/dist/server.js","- /var/task/dist/lambda.js","- /var/task/___vc/__launcher.js","- /var/runtime/index.mjs","    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:933:15)","    at Function.resolve (node:internal/modules/cjs/helpers:108:19)","    at getFullTemplatePath (/var/task/node_modules/html-webpack-plugin/index.js:1028:26)","    at hookIntoCompiler (/var/task/node_modules/html-webpack-plugin/index.js:174:22)","    at /var/task/node_modules/html-webpack-plugin/index.js:104:9","    at Array.forEach (<anonymous>)","    at /var/task/node_modules/html-webpack-plugin/index.js:103:20","    at Hook.eval [as call] (eval at create (/var/task/node_modules/tapable/lib/HookCodeFactory.js:19:10), <anonymous>:7:1)","    at Hook.CALL_DELEGATE [as _call] (/var/task/node_modules/tapable/lib/Hook.js:14:14)","    at createCompiler (/var/task/node_modules/webpack/lib/webpack.js:81:28)"]}

(payload): Starting Payload...
2022-07-13T10:33:51.026Z	9652fee7-6786-4588-b1e2-7c0daf78ffe7	ERROR	Invoke Error 	{"errorType":"OverwriteModelError","errorMessage":"Cannot overwrite `users` model once compiled.","stack":["OverwriteModelError: Cannot overwrite `users` model once compiled.","    at Mongoose.model (/var/task/node_modules/mongoose/lib/index.js:543:13)","    at /var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/collections/init.js:70:39","    at Array.map (<anonymous>)","    at registerCollections (/var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/collections/init.js:23:53)","    at Payload.init (/var/task/node_modules/payload/dist/index.js:202:28)","    at Object.<anonymous> (/var/task/dist/server.js:16:19)","    at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1105:14)","    at Module._compile (/var/task/node_modules/pirates/lib/index.js:136:24)","    at Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1159:10)","    at Object.newLoader (/var/task/node_modules/pirates/lib/index.js:141:7)"]}

I'm not sure which causes them as I'm not a native JS developer, so I'm more or less stuck here.

If anyone wants to help out on this one, please feel free to contact me :)

Thank you and have a great day!

Best wishes
Tom

[wiesson]

I went with render.com and payload-cms was online in a couple of minutes (mongodb hosted on mongodb.com), image cdn with cloudinary

[tomhatzer]

Thank you for answering, @wiesson 😃
I went with fly.io for now. Had a small problem that was sitting about 60cm in front of the screen (me), afterwards it worked within minutes too. Example files needed to get it running on fly.io are inside the linked problem above. They work as provided (at least for me, right now). I'm also using the free tier of mongodb atlas for the database.