Web Hosting Quick-Start Guide for Data Professionals

TL;DR - Fastest Path to Production

Quick Deploy Recipe: GitHub + Vercel/Netlify for frontend, Railway/Heroku for backend, Supabase/PlanetScale for database.
  1. Push your code to GitHub
  2. Connect your GitHub repo to Vercel
  3. Configure environment variables
  4. Deploy with one click

Core Concepts - 2 Minute Overview

Frontend Hosting

  • Static files (HTML, CSS, JS)
  • CDN distribution
  • Usually free tier available
  • Instant global deployment

Backend Hosting

  • Running server code (Python, Node)
  • Database connections
  • API endpoints
  • Pay for compute resources

Database Hosting

  • Persistent data storage
  • Automatic backups
  • Connection pooling
  • Pay for storage/throughput

Practical Deployment Patterns

Static Site Deployment (Simplest)

# 1. Push to GitHub
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git remote add origin https://github.com/username/repo.git
git push -u origin main

# 2. Deploy on Vercel
- Visit vercel.com
- Import your GitHub repo
- Click Deploy

Full Stack App Deployment

# 1. Separate frontend and backend
/my-app
  /frontend  # React/Next.js app
  /backend   # Python/Node API

# 2. Deploy frontend to Vercel
- Push to GitHub
- Import to Vercel
- Set environment variables for API URL

# 3. Deploy backend to Railway
- Push to GitHub
- Create new Railway project
- Connect GitHub repo
- Set environment variables
- Railway will auto-detect your language

Data API Deployment

# 1. Prepare your API
requirements.txt  # Python dependencies
Procfile         # Command to run server
.env             # Environment variables

# 2. Deploy to Heroku
heroku create
git push heroku main

# 3. Set up database
heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql

Environment Setup Checklist

Critical: Never commit sensitive data (API keys, passwords) to Git! 
# .gitignore
.env
venv/
node_modules/
__pycache__/
*.pyc

# .env
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:pass@host:5432/db
API_KEY=your_api_key
NODE_ENV=production

Platform Quick-Reference

Frontend Hosting

Backend Hosting

Database Hosting

Common Pitfalls & Solutions

CORS Issues

# Backend (Python/Flask)
from flask_cors import CORS
app = Flask(__name__)
CORS(app, origins=['https://your-frontend.vercel.app'])

Environment Variables

# Next.js frontend
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=https://api.example.com

# Python backend
DATABASE_URL=${DATABASE_URL}

Build Issues

# Specify Node version
"engines": {
  "node": ">=18.0.0"
}

Monitoring & Maintenance