Heroku Alternative: Deploy Apps with Dokku on DigitalOcean

Dokku: Lightweight Heroku alternative to simplify application deployment

Have the restrictions on Heroku's free app been tightened? don’t worry! This article introduces Dokku, a Heroku-like tool that allows easy deployment of complex applications through Git. It directly supports Heroku build packages, easily migrates existing applications, and provides various plugins for databases and other components. While Dokku requires more command line settings than Heroku and requires some server management experience, it provides great flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

The combination of Dokku and DigitalOcean: Cost-effective application deployment

With DigitalOcean pre-installed Dokku image, you can quickly build your own server and use a custom root domain name. This article will guide you to set up a Dokku server on DigitalOcean and deploy a simple static website. Dokku requires at least 1GB of memory and a basic domain name to host your app. To associate the domain name with the Dokku server, you need to set up an A record pointing to the server IP.

Difference between Dokku and Heroku

• Dokku requires some server management experience, and may need to modify nginx configuration, manually configure plug-ins, or use system tools for debugging.
• Dokku uses Docker, which increases the complexity of server installation.
• Dokku requires root permissions of VPS to install plug-ins, run commands, etc.

All in all, Dokku requires more command-line operations than Heroku, but this is not complicated and you can get started with just a little learning.

Create Dokku server on DigitalOcean

Login to DigitalOcean and create a new server (at least 1GB of memory) using the pre-installed Dokku app. Enter the base domain name (for example, example.com) you want to use to host your app in the host name. Make sure you own this domain name and register if necessary!

Domain name settings

Set an A record pointing to the server IP and a wildcard (*) A record pointing to the same IP. After the DNS resolution is completed, you can continue to the next steps.

If you want to host your app on another domain, you can:

• Name the app as otherdomain.com when creating it, Dokku will use the domain name automatically.
• Set a CNAME DNS record pointing to myapp.example.com (for example, www.otherdomain.com).

Create your first app

SSH connects to your server and runs the following command:

<code class="language-bash">$ dokku apps:create example.com</code>

This will create an app called "example.com" on your server, which will appear in the root directory of your domain name. For subsequent apps, you can run dokku apps:create appname and the app will be hosted in appname.example.com.

Deploy static website

Next, we deploy a simple static website to example.com. Create an empty file (.static) in the project root directory. This will tell the build package that this is a static website. After pushing the project to Dokku, it will automatically detect and configure it accordingly. touch .static

Create a Git repository containing

files and add index.html and .static files. Add Dokku as a remote repository: .env

<code class="language-bash">$ dokku apps:create example.com</code>

Then, deploy with the following command:

<code class="language-bash">git remote add dokku dokku@example.com:example.com</code>

Dokku will configure the application container (detect static build packages), visit example.com to view your static website.

Next steps

If you have an existing Heroku app, just add the Dokku remote repository and run

to migrate. git push dokku master

You may need to set up a database. Dokku supports a variety of database plug-ins, including Postgres, Mongo and Mysql, which are easy to install and use.

If you encounter any problems, please refer to the Dokku documentation.

FAQ

• Cost-effectiveness comparison between Dokku and Heroku: Dokku combined with DigitalOcean is more cost-effective than Heroku.
• Is Dokku suitable for beginners: Yes, Dokku is easy to use and provides comprehensive documentation and community support.
• Dokku's scalability: Dokku can easily expand applications.
• Application types supported by Dokku: Dokku supports various applications, including web applications, APIs, microservices, etc., and supports multiple programming languages.
• Dokku's security: Dokku provides functions such as automated security updates, two-factor authentication and DDoS protection.
• App Migration: You can easily migrate existing apps to Dokku.
• Backup Solution: Dokku supports snapshot backup of Droplets and volumes.
• Reliability: Dokku provides 99.99% uptime SLA.
• Team Collaboration: Dokku supports team collaboration.
• Support: Dokku provides comprehensive documentation and community support.

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