Deploy, Manage, and Scale Your Node.js Applications, Your Way

Heroku automatically manages Node.js dependencies using either npm, Yarn, or pnpm. The platform defaults to npm, but will automatically use Yarn if a yarn.lock file is detected in your project or pnpm if a pnpm-lock.yaml file is detected in your project. This ensures the correct package manager is run to install the exact versions of your dependencies for a fast and reliable build.

The fastest way to get started is by following the official Getting Started on Heroku with Node.js guide in the Heroku Dev Center. This tutorial provides a sample application and walks you through the steps of cloning the repository, provisioning a Heroku app, and deploying your code with a simple git push heroku main command.

For apps using classic buildpacks or Cloud Native Buildpacks, Heroku’s Node.js version support follows the official Node.js support policy. This means Heroku supports all active Long-Term Support (LTS) versions, and versions are removed after they reach their End-of-Life (EOL).

You can specify the exact version your app requires in the engines section of your package.json file. It is strongly recommended to always declare a version to ensure a consistent and predictable build environment.

Heroku supports the entire Node.js ecosystem, from back-end APIs to full-stack applications. The most popular frameworks deployed on the platform include Express.js for its minimalist and flexible approach to building APIs. For full-stack applications, modern frameworks like Next.js (for React) and NestJS (for TypeScript) are also excellent and widely used choices.

Heroku’s Node.js buildpack automatically handles the build step for modern JavaScript applications. After installing your dependencies, the buildpack checks the scripts section of your package.json file for a build script. If this script is present, Heroku will execute it by running npm run build. This is the standard way to compile assets, transpile TypeScript, or bundle your front-end code for production before your application is deployed.

Yes. While npm is the default package manager, Heroku’s Node.js buildpack will automatically detect and use Yarn if it finds a yarn.lock file in your project, or pnpm if it finds a pnpm-lock.yaml file. When one of those files is present, the buildpack will run the appropriate install command (e.g., yarn install or pnpm install) instead of npm install, allowing you to use your preferred package manager without any special configuration.

The best practice for managing secrets, API keys, and other environment-specific settings is to use Heroku config vars. Config vars are environment variables that are securely stored with your application and are exposed to your code at runtime.

You can access these config vars in your Node.js application through the global process.env object. For example:

const apiKey = process.env.API_KEY;

This approach is not only a critical security practice for keeping secrets out of your code, but it also allows the same application codebase to be deployed across different environments (like staging and production) without any changes.

Yes. The WebSocket protocol is a core technology for modern, real-time web applications, providing a bidirectional channel for delivering data between clients and servers. Heroku’s platform has native support for WebSockets, allowing you to build these kinds of applications with Node.js.

With out-of-the-box support for popular libraries like Socket.IO and ws that ensure robust and stable connections, Heroku is a great choice for building real-time applications like chat apps, live dashboards, and collaborative tools.