It Lives on the Internet

Narrated

You’ve been running your trip planner on localhost. That word means exactly what it sounds like. Local host. Your computer is hosting the app, and only your computer can see it. If you type “localhost:3000” into your browser, it works. If your friend types the same thing into their browser, they get nothing. It’s not a real address. It’s your computer talking to itself.

This is like building a restaurant, cooking amazing food, but never unlocking the front door. The food is real. The restaurant works. But nobody can get in.

Today we unlock the door. We’re going to take your app and put it on someone else’s computer, a server that’s connected to the internet twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Then we’re going to give it a real address, a URL, that anyone in the world can type into their browser to use your trip planner.

This process is called deployment. You’re taking your app from your machine and deploying it to the internet. After this lesson, you’ll have a link. A real link. You can text it to a friend, post it on social media, or put it on your resume. Anyone who clicks it will see your trip planner and be able to use it.

This is the moment your project stops being a thing on your laptop and starts being a thing on the internet.