Featured AI Products
Compute
Build, deploy, and scale cloud compute resources
Containers and Images
Safely store and manage containers and backups
Managed Databases
Fully managed resources running popular database engines
Management and Dev Tools
Control infrastructure and gather insights
Networking
Secure and control traffic to apps
Security
Help protect your account and resources with these security features
Storage
Store and access any amount of data reliably in the cloud
Browse all products
AI/ML
CMS
Data and IoT
Developer Tools
Gaming and Media
Hosting
Security and Networking
Startups and SMBs
Web and App Platforms
See all solutions
Community
Documentation
Developer Tools
Get Involved
Utilities and Help
Become a Partner
Marketplace
Pricing

- Community
- DigitalOcean
- Community
- DigitalOcean

Using VPC with App Services

Posted on October 24, 2025

We have two Apps both in the same VPC (confirmed by viewing them via the VPC dashboard).

The frontend app connects to the backend app via an environment variable which is currently the full DigitalOcean.app URL of the backend app. e.g. https://back-app-3gxb7.ondigitalocean.app/

The Private IP for back-app shows as: 10.124.0.5, so I tried to replace the env var with https://10.124.0.5/ but but my build failed due to not being able to make a connection to the backend. Is there something more I need to do on back-app to allow connections over the private IP?

This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.

Bobby

October 26, 2025

Hi there,

Just to confirm, when you say “frontend app”, is it a static site or a client-side JavaScript app that runs in the browser? If so, it won’t be able to reach your backend through the private VPC IP (10.x.x.x) since those addresses are only accessible inside the platform’s private network. In that case, you’ll need to expose the backend through a public endpoint and have the frontend call that.

If both apps are actually backend services deployed on App Platform within the same VPC, then internal routing should work, but the best approach is to group them as service components under the same app. That automatically handles private communication without having to manage IPs manually:

You can check out the official guide here: https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/manage-internal-routing/

Could you share a bit more about how the frontend is deployed and how you’re trying to make the connection?

The developer cloud

Scale up as you grow — whether you're running one virtual machine or ten thousand.

View all products

Start building today

From GPU-powered inference and Kubernetes to managed databases and storage, get everything you need to build, scale, and deploy intelligent applications.