AWS Deployment for Node.js | EC2, Elastic Beanstalk & Lambda Basics

Introduction

This section extracts AWS-focused deployment patterns from the broader Node.js deployment guide: EC2 for VMs you manage, Elastic Beanstalk for a managed platform, and Lambda for serverless HTTP handlers.

Deployment checklist (reminder)

• Environment variables configured
• Production-only dependencies installed
• Error logging enabled
• Security middleware (e.g. Helmet, CORS)
• Database migrations applied
• Static assets built
• Tests passing
• Load/perf smoke tests

Deployment styles:

• Traditional: VPS, PM2, Nginx
• Containers: Docker, Kubernetes
• Serverless: AWS Lambda, Vercel
• PaaS: Heroku, Railway, Render

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1. EC2 deployment

1) Create an EC2 instance

• Choose Ubuntu Server (or your standard AMI)
• Security group: open HTTP (80), HTTPS (443), SSH (22) as needed

2) Server setup

# SSH in
ssh -i your-key.pem ubuntu@your-ec2-ip

# Install Node.js
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

# Git
sudo apt-get install -y git

# Clone project
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/your-repo.git
cd your-repo

# Dependencies
npm ci --only=production

# Environment
nano .env

# PM2
npm install -g pm2
pm2 start app.js --name "my-app" -i max
pm2 startup
pm2 save

# Nginx
sudo apt install -y nginx
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

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2. Elastic Beanstalk

Install CLI

pip install awsebcli

Initialize and deploy

eb init

# Create environment and deploy
eb create production
eb deploy

# Logs
eb logs

# Environment variables
eb setenv NODE_ENV=production PORT=8080

# Status
eb status

# Tear down
eb terminate production

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3. Lambda (serverless)

// lambda.js
const serverless = require('serverless-http');
const app = require('./app');

module.exports.handler = serverless(app);

serverless.yml:

service: my-app

provider:
  name: aws
  runtime: nodejs20.x
  region: ap-northeast-2

functions:
  app:
    handler: lambda.handler
    events:
      - http:
          path: /{proxy+}
          method: ANY
          cors: true

Deploy:

npm install -g serverless
serverless deploy

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Conclusion

AWS options for Node.js span full control (EC2), managed platform (Elastic Beanstalk), and serverless (Lambda). Match operational maturity, traffic shape, and cold-start tolerance to the service. For PM2, Docker, and Nginx details, see the full Node.js deployment guide.