In this guide, we will walk you through the process of deploying a Next.js app in a production environment. Next.js is a powerful and popular framework for building React applications, and deploying your app for production ensures that it is optimized and ready for users to access.

Updating the package.json File

To generate the production version of your Next.js app, you need to add three lines of code to the scripts section of your package.json file.

"scripts": {
  "dev": "next",
  "build": "next build",
  "start": "next start"
}

The dev script is used for starting the Next.js development server, which provides useful features like source maps and hot code reloading for debugging purposes. However, these features are not necessary in the production environment.

Building and Starting the Production App

To deploy your app in production, follow these steps:

Step 1: Build your app by running the following command in your terminal:

npm run build

This command will generate an optimized version of your app, which includes prerendered static HTML for certain routes. The terminal output will provide information about which routes are prerendered and which will be served by the Node.js backend.

Step 2: Start the production server locally using the following command:

npm run start

This command will launch the production version of your app on your local machine.

Step 3: Visit http://localhost:3000 in your web browser to view the production version of your app.

Conclusion

By following these steps, you can easily deploy your Next.js app in a production environment. Building and starting the production version of your app ensures that it is optimized for performance and ready to be accessed by end users.

Tags: Next.js, production deployment, building React applications, optimizing performance