You’ve followed an excellent walkthrough and built a solid prototype web app. You run npm start locally and browse to https://localhost and all looks great. Now you’re ready to put your app in the cloud, utilize a managed database and managed authentication, and share a link with all your coworkers and friends. But wait a minute, it looks like you’ll first have to set up cloud pipelines and container images, then brush up on Bash or PowerShell and write a Dockerfile. Getting your app to the cloud is more work than you anticipated. Is there a faster way?
We’re happy to share that yes there is a faster way. When you need to focus on app code you can delegate build and deployment to Azure with App Service web apps. Push your git repo directly to Azure or point to one hosted in GitHub, Azure DevOps, or BitBucket and we’ll take care of building and running your code the way you expect. You may be using this already for your .NET apps; we now support Node.js and Python as well.
Do you write apps in Node.js, JavaScript, or TypeScript? We’ll install your dependencies and use the build steps specifed in your package.json scripts. Prefer yarn over npm? Include a yarn.lock file or use the engines field in package.json and we’re happy to oblige.
Perhaps you’re a pythonist and prefer Django? Well then, we’ll install your dependencies as specified in requirements.txt, prepare your static assets by running collectstatic, and give you a post-build hook to apply database migrations. We’ll even run the application module from Django’s conventional wsgi.py file with gunicorn. We also support other WSGI frameworks like Flask, Bottle or Pyramid; configuration details are here.
Check out our docs for all the details on the new system and configuration options. Ready to start using App Service for your project? Follow the documentation, “Create a Node.js app in Azure App Service on Linux” to set up an app in the Azure portal or with the az CLI.
We’re happy to now support Node.js and Python but realize our work is far from done. Please participate in our questionnaire so we can ensure your needs and scenarios are covered.
Finally, visit our issue tracker to ask questions, offer suggestions, or submit a pull request. Happy coding!
