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Deployment Advisor
Choose the right deployment strategy for your application scale and requirements.
Core Principle
Start simple, scale when needed. Don't over-engineer infrastructure for 10 users that won't arrive for months.
Deployment Tiers
Tier 1: MVP / Small Projects (<1,000 users)
Cost : $0-$20/month Time to Deploy : 5-15 minutes Best for : MVPs, prototypes, side projects, marketing sites
Recommended Platforms :
Vercel (Next.js, React, static sites):
- Push to GitHub → auto deploy
- Edge functions, image optimization
- Free SSL, global CDN
- $0 for hobby, $20/mo for team
Netlify (Static sites, Jamstack):
- Similar to Vercel, better for non-Next.js
- Form handling, split testing
- Serverless functions
Railway (Full-stack, databases):
- Deploys anything (Node, Python, Go, Rust)
- Integrated PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB
- $5/mo for 512MB RAM + usage
Cloudflare Pages (Static + Workers):
- Free unlimited bandwidth
- Edge functions (Workers)
- Fastest CDN globally
Tier 2: Growing Products (1K-100K users)
Cost : $20-$500/month Time to Deploy : 1-4 hours Best for : Validated products, growing startups, paid customers
Recommended Platforms :
AWS Amplify (Full-stack web apps):
- Managed hosting + backend
- Authentication, APIs, databases
- Auto-scaling, monitoring
- $50-200/mo typical
Google Cloud Run (Containerized apps):
- Pay only for actual usage
- Scales to zero
- Automatic HTTPS
- $20-100/mo for small traffic
Fly.io (Distributed apps):
- Global deployment (closer to users)
- PostgreSQL, Redis included
- Docker-based
- $50-200/mo
Render (Simpler alternative to AWS):
- Auto-deploy from Git
- PostgreSQL, Redis, cron jobs
- Free tier available
- $50-150/mo for production
Tier 3: Scale / Enterprise (100K+ users)
Cost : $500-$5,000+/month Time to Deploy : 1-4 weeks Best for : High traffic, enterprise, compliance requirements
Recommended Platforms :
AWS ECS (Containers, no Kubernetes complexity):
- Fargate (serverless containers)
- Full AWS ecosystem
- Fine-grained control
- $500-2000/mo typical
AWS EKS / Google GKE (Kubernetes):
- Full orchestration
- Multi-region, auto-scaling
- Complex but powerful
- $1000-5000+/mo
DigitalOcean App Platform (Mid-tier simplicity):
- Kubernetes-powered, no K8s knowledge needed
- Cheaper than AWS
- Good middle ground
- $200-1000/mo
Decision Framework
Question 1: What are you deploying?
Static site (HTML, CSS, JS) : → Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages
Next.js app : → Vercel (best integration), Netlify
React/Vue/Angular SPA : → Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages
Node.js API : → Railway, Render, Fly.io, AWS Amplify
Python API (FastAPI, Flask, Django) : → Railway, Render, Fly.io, Google Cloud Run
Go/Rust API : → Fly.io, Railway, Google Cloud Run
Full-stack (Frontend + Backend + DB) : → Railway, Render, AWS Amplify
Microservices : → Fly.io, Google Cloud Run, AWS ECS
Question 2: Do you need a database?
No database : → Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages
Serverless database (PostgreSQL, MySQL) : → Railway, Render (integrated), AWS RDS, Supabase
Redis/caching : → Railway, Render, AWS ElastiCache, Upstash
MongoDB : → MongoDB Atlas, Railway, AWS DocumentDB
Question 3: How many users?
< 100 users (MVP): → Free/cheap tiers: Vercel free, Railway $5
100-1,000 users : → Vercel Pro ($20), Railway ($20-50), Render
1K-10K users : → Railway ($50-100), AWS Amplify, Cloud Run
10K-100K users : → AWS Amplify, Cloud Run, Fly.io ($100-500)
100K-1M users : → AWS ECS, GKE, dedicated servers ($500-5000)
Question 4: Geographic distribution?
Single region (US/Europe) : → Any platform
Global (low latency worldwide) : → Cloudflare Pages/Workers, Vercel Edge, Fly.io (multi-region)
China/Asia : → Cloudflare, Fly.io Hong Kong, Alibaba Cloud
Question 5: Special requirements?
Compliance (HIPAA, SOC 2, GDPR) : → AWS, Google Cloud, Azure (compliance certifications)
Long-running jobs ( >15 min): → Railway, Render Background Workers, AWS ECS
WebSockets/real-time : → Railway, Render, Fly.io, AWS ECS
High compute (video processing, ML) : → AWS ECS/EKS, Google Cloud Run, dedicated GPUs
CI/CD Pipeline Setup
Tier 1: Git Push Auto-Deploy
Platforms : Vercel, Netlify, Railway, Render
Setup (5 minutes):
- Connect GitHub/GitLab repo
- Configure build command:
npm run build
- Configure output directory:
dist or .next
- Push to main branch → auto deploy
Environment Variables :
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://...
API_KEY=secret_key
NODE_ENV=production
Preview Deployments :
- Every pull request gets preview URL
- Test before merging to production
Tier 2: GitHub Actions CI/CD
Use when : Custom tests, security scans, multi-stage deploys
# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
name: Deploy to Production
on:
push:
branches: [main]
jobs:
test:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- uses: actions/setup-node@v3
with:
node-version: '18'
- run: npm ci
- run: npm test
- run: npm run lint
deploy:
needs: test
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- uses: amondnet/vercel-action@v20
with:
vercel-token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
vercel-org-id: ${{ secrets.ORG_ID }}
vercel-project-id: ${{ secrets.PROJECT_ID }}
vercel-args: '--prod'
Tier 3: Enterprise CI/CD
Features :
- Multi-environment (dev, staging, prod)
- Blue-green deployments
- Canary releases
- Automated rollbacks
- Security scanning (SAST, DAST)
Pipeline Stages :
Build → Test → Security Scan → Stage Deploy → Integration Tests → Prod Deploy
Tools :
- GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI
- ArgoCD (GitOps for Kubernetes)
- Terraform (Infrastructure as Code)
Deployment Checklist
Pre-Launch
- Environment variables configured
- Database migrations tested
- SSL/HTTPS enabled
- Custom domain connected
- Error monitoring set up (Sentry, Rollbar)
- Analytics configured
- Backup strategy defined
Launch Day
- Deploy to production
- Verify all pages load
- Test critical user flows
- Check error monitoring dashboard
- Monitor performance metrics
- Have rollback plan ready
Post-Launch
- Monitor logs for errors
- Check performance (response times)
- Verify analytics tracking
- Review cost/usage
- Document any issues
- Plan scaling strategy
Common Deployment Patterns
Pattern 1: Jamstack (Static + API)
Stack : Next.js (Vercel) + API (Railway/Supabase)
Pros : Fast, cheap, scales easily Cons : Not suitable for real-time or server-heavy apps
Frontend (Vercel) → API (Railway) → Database (Supabase)
Pattern 2: Serverless
Stack : Vercel Functions + Serverless DB (Supabase/PlanetScale)
Pros : Zero server management, pay per use Cons : Cold starts, vendor lock-in
Frontend (Vercel) → Edge Functions (Vercel) → Serverless DB
Pattern 3: Traditional Full-Stack
Stack : Railway (Node.js + PostgreSQL)
Pros : Simple, everything in one place Cons : Single point of failure
Railway: Node.js API + PostgreSQL + Redis
Pattern 4: Microservices
Stack : Multiple Cloud Run services + Cloud SQL
Pros : Independent scaling, fault isolation Cons : Complex, higher cost
Frontend (Vercel) → Service 1 (Cloud Run) → Database
→ Service 2 (Cloud Run) → Queue
Cost Optimization
Free Tier Strategy
- Vercel: Free for personal projects
- Supabase: 500MB DB, 50K API requests/day
- Railway: $5 credit/month (enough for small API)
- Cloudflare: Unlimited bandwidth free
Total : $0-5/month for MVP
Production Cost Optimization
- Use caching (Redis, CDN) to reduce compute
- Optimize images (Next.js Image, Cloudinary)
- Database connection pooling (PgBouncer)
- Monitor and right-size resources
- Use spot instances for non-critical workloads
Security Best Practices
Must-Haves
- ✅ HTTPS only (automatic on most platforms)
- ✅ Environment variables for secrets (never commit)
- ✅ Database encryption at rest
- ✅ Regular dependency updates
- ✅ Rate limiting on APIs
Recommended
- Security headers (helmet.js for Node)
- DDoS protection (Cloudflare)
- Automated vulnerability scanning
- Audit logs for sensitive operations
- Backup and disaster recovery plan
Monitoring & Observability
Tier 1: Basic Monitoring
- Platform dashboards (Vercel Analytics, Railway Metrics)
- Error tracking: Sentry ($0-26/mo)
- Uptime monitoring: UptimeRobot (free), Better Uptime
Tier 2: Enhanced Monitoring
- APM: New Relic, Datadog ($15-100/mo)
- Log aggregation: LogTail, Papertrail
- Custom metrics and alerting
Tier 3: Enterprise Observability
- Full stack: Datadog, New Relic ($300-1000+/mo)
- Distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry)
- Custom dashboards (Grafana)
- PagerDuty for incidents
Quick Start Recommendations
Simple marketing site : → Vercel + Contentful CMS
SaaS MVP : → Next.js (Vercel) + Supabase (DB + Auth) + Stripe
Internal tool : → React (Netlify) + FastAPI (Railway) + PostgreSQL (Railway)
Mobile app backend : → FastAPI (Cloud Run) + Cloud SQL + Firebase Auth
E-commerce : → Next.js (Vercel) + Shopify/Stripe + PostgreSQL (Supabase)
Related Resources
Related Skills :
frontend-builder - For building apps to deployapi-designer - For API architectureperformance-optimizer - For optimizing deployed apps
Related Patterns :
META/DECISION-FRAMEWORK.md - Platform selection guidanceSTANDARDS/architecture-patterns/deployment-patterns.md - Deployment architectures (when created)
Related Playbooks :
PLAYBOOKS/deploy-to-vercel.md - Vercel deployment guide (when created)PLAYBOOKS/setup-cicd.md - CI/CD setup procedure (when created)
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