This is the first article of the series Trying DigitalOcean App Platform which is part of DigitalOcean App Platform Hackathon

In this post, I will deploy a Strapi quickstart to DigitalOcean App Platform.

Update 2022: This post was created with Strapi version 3, the latest Strapi version is 4. There is an official video on Deploying Strapi V4 to DigitalOcean on YouTube.

Setup strapi

Create a strapi project in to my-project directory.

npx create-strapi-app my-project --quickstart

The quickstart project will use a local sqlite as a database. The default sqlite database file is at ./.tmp/data.db.

After the project has been created, the browser will be opened with admin setup page automatically. The admin user and content you create at this step will be available only on your computer since it is stored in local sqlite.

Production database config

To tell Strapi to use DigitalOcean database when we deploy it, create the following ./config/env/production/database.js file.

module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
  defaultConnection: "default",
  connections: {
    default: {
      connector: "bookshelf",
      settings: {
        client: "postgres",
        host: env("DATABASE_HOST", "localhost"),
        port: env.int("DATABASE_PORT", 5432),
        database: env("DATABASE_NAME", "strapi"),
        username: env("DATABASE_USERNAME", "strapi"),
        password: env("DATABASE_PASSWORD", "strapi"),
        ssl: {
          ca: env("DATABASE_CA", ""),
        },
      },
    },
  },
});

Develop Strapi

Develop Strapi as usual. If you are new to Strapi, you can try Quick Start Guide

Push code to GitHub repository

For example, here is my repository.

Launch DigitalOcean App

1. Go to DigitalOcean App Platform Console and choose the repository.
2. Choose the region that is close to your user
3. Set the following environment variables and change HTTP port to 1337. Notice the db prefix in environment variables.
   • NODE_ENV = production
   • DATABASE_HOST = ${db.HOSTNAME}
   • DATABASE_PORT = ${db.PORT}
   • DATABASE_NAME = ${db.DATABASE}
   • DATABASE_USERNAME = ${db.USERNAME}
   • DATABASE_PASSWORD = ${db.PASSWORD} (Encrypt)
   • DATABASE_CA = ${db.CA_CERT}
4. Add database, set its name to db. The name must be the same as the prefix you used in environment variables.
5. Choose your plan and container size. The lowest cost plan is $12 (Basic $5/mo). Then launch your Strapi App! 🎉

Congratulations! 🎊

The Strapi application is being deployed and will be ready in around 10 minutes. You can visit https://<your-url>/admin to setup production admin account.