From Local to Live: A Complete Strapi v5 Deployment Roadmap (Part 0)

Originally published at https://devnotes.kamalthennakoon.com From Local to Live: A Complete Strapi v5 Deployment Roadmap (Part 0) A lot of people use Strapi to build projects quickly. It’s fast, flexible, and great for MVPs. Where most people get stuck is deployment. The common path is to use platforms like Render or similar services, especially after Heroku removed its free tier. That works, until your app goes to sleep every few minutes. There’s nothing like watching your demo app take 30 seconds to wake up while someone is waiting. On top of that, most free platforms don’t let you properly run Docker containers. That introduces environment inconsistencies and makes realistic deployment testing difficult. Going straight to AWS can feel like overkill when you’re just trying to test an MVP with real users. If you're new to AWS, the learning curve is real. Setup takes time. Costs can escalate if you're not careful. There’s a reason “AWS for beginners” tutorials are often 40+ parts long.