Publish websites

Different ways to publish the Expo web app with third-party services.

Creating a Build

• Bundle the project for production - npx expo export:web (expo build:web in the legacy Expo CLI).
  • Creates a production-ready static bundle in the web-build/ directory. Don't edit this folder directly.
  • Uses webpack to optimize the project.
  • If you make any changes to your project, you'll need to re-build for production.
  • For more help use npx expo export:web --help
• You can now deploy or host this anywhere you like.

Tips

• Serving your site in a subfolder? Add the path to your package.json:

{
    "homepage": "/webapp"
}

Serving Locally

• Serve CLI: Quickly test how it works in production - npx serve web-build
• Open http://localhost:5000
• This is http only, so permissions, camera, location, and many other things won't work.

AWS Amplify Console

The AWS Amplify Console provides a Git-based workflow for continuously deploying and hosting full-stack serverless web apps. Amplify deploys your PWA from a repository instead of from your computer. In this guide, we'll use a GitHub repository. Before starting, create a new repo on GitHub.

1. Add the amplify-explicit.yml file to the root of your repo.

2. Push your local Expo project to your GitHub repository. If you haven't pushed to GitHub yet, follow GitHub's guide to add an existing project to GitHub.

3. Login to the Amplify Console and choose Get started under Deploy. Grant Amplify permission to read from your GitHub account or organization that owns your repo.

4. The Amplify Console will detect that the amplify.yml file is in your repo. Choose Next.

5. Review your settings and choose Save and deploy. Your app will now be deployed to a https://branchname.xxxxxx.amplifyapp.com URL.

Vercel

Vercel has a single-command zero-config deployment flow. You can use vercel to deploy your app for free!

For more information on unlimited hosting, check out their pricing.

1. Install the Vercel CLI.

2. Build your Expo web app with npx expo export:web (SDK 45 and lower should use expo build:web via the legacy global Expo CLI).

3. To deploy:

• Run cd web-build
• Run vercel
• You should see a URL that you can use to view your project online.

Paste that URL into your browser when the build is complete, and you will see your deployed app.

Surge

Install the Surge CLI if you haven't already by running npm install -g surge. Run the surge command, then promptly log in or create a new account.

When asked about the project path, make sure to specify the web-build folder, for example:

project path: /path/to/expo-project/web-build

To support routers that use the HTML 5 pushState API, you'll need to rename the web-build/index.html to web/200.html before deploying.

Netlify

Learn more about Netlify.

Manual deployment with the Netlify CDN

1. Install the Netlify CLI by running npm install netlify-cli -g.

2. If your app uses routes, add a _redirects file inside the web-build directory so the client has complete control over the routing logic. This file should contain the /* /index.html 200 rule.

   2.1. Run cd web-build to navigate inside the directory.

   2.2. Run the command echo "/* /index.html 200" > "_redirects" to create _redirects file with rule.

3. To deploy:

   3.1. Run the netlify deploy command and choose web-build as the publish directory.

   3.2. You should see a URL that you can use to view your project online.

Continuous delivery

With this setup Netlify will build and deploy when you push to git or open a new pull request:

1. Start a new Netlify project
2. Pick your Git hosting service and select your repository
3. Click Build your site

GitHub Pages

Learn more about GitHub Pages.

We'll use yarn but you can use npm if you want.

Before starting, be sure to create a new repo on GitHub. Then, run the following in your root directory:

git init
git remote add origin <YOUR_GITHUB_PAGES_URL>
yarn add -D gh-pages

Add the following to your package.json:

{
  "homepage": "http://evanbacon.github.io/expo-gh-pages",
  "scripts": {
    "deploy": "gh-pages -d web-build",
    "predeploy": "expo export:web"
  }
}

In projects running SDK 45 or lower, use expo build:web instead of expo export:web.

Finally, deploy with:

Here are the formal instructions for deploying to GitHub Pages:

1. Initialize a git repo

• This is probably already done, but if not then you'll want to run git init and set the remote.

  $ git init
  Initialized empty Git repository in /path/to/expo-gh-pages/.git/
  

2. Add the GitHub repository as a "remote" in your local git repository.

   $ git remote add origin https://github.com/evanbacon/expo-gh-pages.git
   

   • This will make it so the gh-pages package knows where you want it to deploy your app.
   • It will also make it so git knows where you want it to push your source code (i.e. the commits on your master branch).

3. Install the gh-pages package as a dev-dependency of the app.

   yarn add -D gh-pages
   

4. Configure your package.json for web hosting.

   • At the top level, add a homepage property. Set its value to the string http://{username on GitHub, without the curly brackets}.github.io/{repo-name}. For example: If my GitHub name is evanbacon and my GitHub repository is expo-gh-pages, I'll asign the following:

   %%placeholder-start%%... %%placeholder-end%%
   "homepage": "http://evanbacon.github.io/expo-gh-pages"
   

   • In the existing scripts property, add a predeploy property and a deploy property, each having the values shown below:
   package.json

   Copy

   "scripts": {
    %%placeholder-start%%... %%placeholder-end%%
     "deploy": "gh-pages -d web-build",
     "predeploy": "expo export:web"
   }
   

   In projects running SDK 45 or lower, use expo build:web instead of expo export:web. predeploy is automatically run before deploy.

5. Generate a production build of your app, and deploy it to GitHub Pages.

   $ yarn deploy
   

   • Your web app is now available at the URL you set as homepage in your package.json.

   When you publish code to gh-pages, it will create and push the code to a branch in your repo called gh-pages. This branch will have your built code but not your development source code.

Firebase Hosting

Learn more about Firebase Hosting.

Setup Firebase

• Create a firebase project with the Firebase Console.

• Install the Firebase CLI if you haven't already by following these instructions.

• Run the firebase login command, then promptly log in.

• Run the firebase init command, and select your project and hosting.

• When asked about the public path, make sure to specify the web-build folder.

• Answer 'Configure as a single-page app (rewrite all urls to /index.html)' with 'Yes'.

Update package.json

In the existing scripts property, add a predeploy property and a deploy property, each having the values shown below:

"scripts": {
  %%placeholder-start%%... %%placeholder-end%%
  "predeploy": "expo export:web",
  "deploy-hosting": "npm run predeploy && firebase deploy --only hosting",
}

In projects running SDK 45 or lower, use expo build:web instead of expo export:web.

Run the npm run deploy-hosting command to deploy.

Open the URL from the console output to check your deployment, for example, https://PROJECTNAME.firebaseapp.com

In case you want to change the header for hosting add the following config in hosting section in firebase.json:

  "hosting": [
    {
      /* ... */
  "headers": [
        {
          "source": "/**",
          "headers": [
            {
              "key": "Cache-Control",
              "value": "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "source": "**/*.@(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|svg|webp|js|css|eot|otf|ttf|ttc|woff|woff2|font.css)",
          "headers": [
            {
              "key": "Cache-Control",
              "value": "max-age=604800"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
    }
  ]