You’ve been building locally for weeks. It works. It’s time to show it to the world. But deploying feels like a different skill entirely — because it is.

Here’s a practical guide to getting your vibe-coded app live without the usual pain.

Pick hosting that matches your stack

AI tools often suggest complex hosting setups. For most solo founder apps, you need one of three things:

Static/SSR frontend (Next.js, SvelteKit, Nuxt) → Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare Pages. Free tier is usually enough.
Backend API → Railway, Render, or Fly.io. Start with the cheapest tier.
Database → Supabase, PlanetScale, or Neon. All have generous free tiers.

Don’t start with Kubernetes. Don’t start with AWS unless you already know AWS. Keep it simple.

Set up CI/CD before you deploy manually even once

The moment you deploy by hand, you’ll do it wrong eventually. Set up a GitHub Actions workflow that:

Runs on push to main
Installs dependencies
Runs your tests (even if you only have a few)
Builds the project
Deploys to your hosting provider

Most hosting providers have a GitHub Actions template. It’s usually about 20 lines of YAML.

Get a real domain with HTTPS

Buy a domain. Point it at your hosting. Enable HTTPS (most platforms do this automatically with Let’s Encrypt). This is non-negotiable — browsers actively warn users about HTTP sites now.

Set up environment variables properly

Every platform has a way to set environment variables in their dashboard. Use it. Never commit secrets to your repo, even in a .env file that’s gitignored — because someone will forget to gitignore it eventually.

Add basic health monitoring

You need to know when your app is down before your users tell you. Set up a free uptime monitor (Uptime Robot, Better Stack) that pings your site every 5 minutes.

The deploy checklist

Before you go live:

HTTPS is working
Environment variables are set in production
No secrets in the git history
Error pages don’t show stack traces
Database has backups enabled
You can deploy again with a single push

Deployment is the part AI tools handle the worst because it’s inherently about your specific infrastructure, your specific domain, your specific requirements. It’s also the part where mistakes are most visible.

Need help getting from localhost to production? Book a Dedicated Day — I’ll set up your CI/CD, configure hosting, and make sure the whole pipeline works.