Deploying ReactJs frontend + NodeJs backend to AWS

Question

I have a NodeJs/React web app. I use to deploy to one EC2 instance. Is this the correct approach?

I've seen online that one option is to put the frontend in S3 with CloudFront and then the backend in an EC2 instance. In this case does the NodeJs server serve the static files from that bucket? Or how would it work?

Answer 1

Hosting dynamic part of React apps on Compute (I'll prefer ECS+Fargate over EC2) and static on S3 + CloudFront is an efficient way to use AWS Managed services capabilities. Your architecture will be something like this:

client -> CloudFront (cached) -> S3 (static resources)
client -> CloudFront (NOT cached) -> LB -> Compute (EC2 / Fargate / Lambda)

You can manage different paths or routes via CloudFront Behaviour functionality. So root (/index.html) points to your S3. and APIs (/api) can point to the Load Balancer for dynamic content.