Deploying A Full Stack Application With Docker On Aws

Leo Migdal

-Dec 4, 2025, 9:11 PM

deploying a full stack application with docker on aws

In the ever-evolving world of web development, one of the most empowering things you can do is take your application from local development all the way to the cloud — and that’s exactly what... Over the past few days, I built and deployed a full-stack application consisting of a React frontend and an Express.js backend, fully containerized and hosted on AWS ECS using Fargate. Here’s a look behind the scenes of how I transformed lines of code into a cloud-native, production-grade deployment. The architecture was simple but effective: a React frontend communicating with an Express backend. I began by developing both apps locally and testing them with Docker to ensure container compatibility. Each app was placed in its own Docker container with production-ready configurations.

Created a new cluster using Fargate launch type. No EC2 instances needed! The objective of this project was to deploy a complete and functional full-stack web application, composed of a frontend (Nginx/HTML), a backend (Flask/Python), and a database (MySQL). The entire architecture was containerized using Docker and deployed on an AWS infrastructure. The AWS architecture was configured to route traffic securely and in a controlled manner to the application. A CloudFront distribution was deployed to receive all public user traffic.

This distribution is configured to forward requests to a single EC2 instance. The EC2 instance serves as the host where the Docker environment runs. To control access, a Security Group was configured to act as a firewall, allowing incoming TCP traffic only on ports 8090 (frontend) and 5001 (backend API). The remaining ports, including the database port, are not accessible from the internet. The application was broken down into three independent but interconnected services, each with its own container, orchestrated within the EC2 instance. As an experienced full-stack developer, I have used Docker and AWS to build and run countless production-grade containerized applications.

In this comprehensive 2600+ word guide, I will impart my hard-earned lessons to help you master containers and cloud-native deployment. First, why use container technologies like Docker? Based on my experience, containers enable easier development and defect-free deployment. And why run containers on AWS specifically? As per Flexera 2022 State of Cloud Report: Welcome to my Full Stack Application Deployment With Docker project!

🚀 This project demonstrates the power of Docker and Docker Compose in deploying a full stack application seamlessly on AWS EC2. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just getting started with containerization, this project provides an excellent opportunity to dive into deploying complex applications with ease. Building and deploying full stack applications can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to managing dependencies, environments, and scaling. With Docker, I simplify this process by encapsulating each component of the application into containers, ensuring consistency across development, testing, and production environments. If any environment variables are required, create a .env file in the root directory of the project and define the variables there.

Once the containers are up and running, access the application in your web browser using the public IP address of your AWS EC2 instance. Replace localhost with the public IP address. In today's fast-paced world of software development, the ability to quickly package, deploy, and scale applications on public cloud infrastructure has become more essential than ever. Containerization has truly revolutionized these processes, with Docker standing out as a catalyst in the advancement of this movement. Docker containers can provide consistent runtime environments for your applications, allowing developers to build, deploy, and iterate with unprecedented efficiency. Containers make a lot of sense in the public cloud.

The cloud offers a powerful and versatile platform for provisioning infrastructure, so enterprises no longer have to plan their infrastructure requirements well ahead of their current needs. Instead, they can quickly scale their resources up and down as necessary. Moreover, big cloud providers offer various services that can easily integrate with containerized applications, making it even easier for organizations to reduce their operational burdens. There are many cloud providers out there, but Amazon Web Services (AWS) undoubtedly stands out as the current market leader. Services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), and Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) can drastically simplify the orchestration, scaling, and management of Docker containers, making it easier for... This article will guide you through several possible methods of deploying your containerized applications on AWS.

You'll start by preparing the Docker images for your application containers and setting up the necessary infrastructure (provisioning a relational database and configuring networking settings). You'll then explore a valid but laborious method for deployment based on EC2 instances and auto-scaling groups. This will give you the fundamentals needed for understanding the more advanced deployment method presented in this tutorial, which shows you how to deploy your containers on a serverless platform using AWS ECS. By the end of this tutorial, you'll have a much deeper understanding of how serverless environments like AWS ECS operate and will be well-equipped to deploy your containerized applications on cloud infrastructure. In this article, you’ll learn how to build and deploy a production-ready full-stack application on AWS using Docker, Terraform, Prometheus, and Grafana for containerization, infrastructure provisioning, monitoring, and visualizing application metrics, respectively. This project reflects how full-stack applications are deployed in real-world environments, from startups to large organizations.

It’s ideal for full-stack developers looking to deploy their apps to the cloud, or aspiring DevOps engineers who want a hands-on understanding of how infrastructure, deployment, and monitoring all come together. By the end of this article, you’ll walk away with both the practical skills and theoretical knowledge needed to: Before you begin, ensure you have the following tools and resources configured on your local machine: Once all tools are installed and your credentials are set, you're ready to begin deploying and monitoring the application.

Deploying A Full Stack Application With Docker On Aws

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