Fullstack Architecture Deployments Recomendations

Heya,

Here is a rough plan on how you can proceed with yoru setup:

• 1 DigitalOcean Droplet (smallest $6/month plan or $8 if you want better CPU performance)

• Inside the droplet:

  • Dockerized environment (separate containers for backend, frontend, and MySQL)

  • Reverse proxy (NGINX or Traefik) for HTTPS (SSL with Let’s Encrypt)

  • Volume for MySQL data persistence (so you don’t lose DB data on container restart)

General Steps to Set it Up

1. Create a DigitalOcean Droplet

• Ubuntu 24.04

• Pick 1vCPU, 1GB RAM, 25GB SSD (the cheapest one)

• Add SSH keys for secure login.

2. Initial Server Setup

• Update packages (sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade)

• Set up basic firewall (UFW) to allow only SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS.

• Install Docker + Docker Compose.

3. Project Structure (on Server)

/app
  /backend (your Express app)
  /frontend (your React app built with Vite)
  /mysql-data (Docker volume for MySQL data)
  docker-compose.yml
  nginx.conf

Prepare Your Apps

• Backend: Make a Dockerfile to run Express.js

• Frontend: Build your React app (npm run build) → serve static files with Nginx or a Node server.

• Database: Use a MySQL Docker image (official one is fine).

• Environment Variables: Use a .env file (but never commit it publicly).

5. Set up Docker Compose

• One service for backend

• One for frontend (optional if you use Nginx directly)

• One for MySQL

• One for Nginx as reverse proxy

• Use Docker volumes for MySQL persistence.

6. SSL Certificate

• Set up Let’s Encrypt SSL easily using:

  • Certbot (with NGINX)

  • OR Traefik (which auto-manages certificates)

7. Domain Setup

• Point your domain DNS to your Droplet IP.

• Configure NGINX to serve frontend at / and backend API at /api/.