Module 4: Web Application Deployment
Module Overview
You've put together a nice application - time to get it out there! A GitHub repo is great, but a deployed application is more effective in your portfolio as everyone in the hiring process (not just technical people) can check it out.
Note: While we use Heroku in this module as our primary deployment platform, it's important to know that Heroku has changed its pricing model and is no longer free by default. Alternatives like Render, Railway, or Fly.io offer similar functionality with generous free tiers for student projects. We'll include resources for these alternatives below.
Learning Objectives
- Deploy a basic (single-server) web application to common cloud services
- Securely connect a deployed web application to a relational database back-end
Guided Project
Open guided-project.md in the GitHub repository to follow along with the guided project.
Starting November 28, 2022, all free Heroku programs will no longer be available. You are strongly advised to deploy on Render, which as of May 28th, 2025, has a free tier.
Module Assignment
Deploy your app! Name it something like twitoff-yourusername. You'll may have to debug. Use Render.com for deployment and configuration, and help your classmates with deployment challenges. You can find information about Render deployment in the Guided Project Resources above.