How to deploy Strapi backend and ReactJS frontend to a single Heroku app

Question

Is there any supported way how to deploy a Strapi backend and a ReactJS frontend into a single Heroku app?

I have successfully deployed the Strapi backend, but am complet

Answer 1

In your strapi app create the following files in the following directories:

./middlewares/serve-react/defaults.json

{
    "serve-react": {
        "enabled": true
    }
}

./middlewares/serve-react/index.js

'use strict';

/**
 * Module dependencies
 */

// Node.js core.
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');
const koaStatic = require('koa-static');

/**
 * Serve react hook
 */

module.exports = strapi => {

  return {
    /**
     * Initialize the hook
     */

    async initialize() {
      const {maxAge, path: publicPath} = strapi.config.middleware.settings.public;
      const staticDir = path.resolve(strapi.dir, publicPath || strapi.config.paths.static);

  strapi.router.get(
    '/*',
    async (ctx, next) => {
      const parse = path.parse(ctx.url);
      ctx.url = path.join(parse.dir, parse.base);

      await next();
    },
    koaStatic(staticDir, {
      maxage: maxAge,
      defer: false, // do not allow other middleware to serve content before this one
    })
  );

  // if no resource is matched by koa-static, just default to serve index file
  // useful for SPA routes
  strapi.router.get('*', ctx => {
    ctx.type = 'html';
    ctx.body = fs.createReadStream(path.join(staticDir + '/index.html'));
  });
},
  };
};

./config/middleware.json

{
  "timeout": 100,
  "load": {
    "before": [
      "responseTime",
      "logger",
      "cors",
      "responses",
      "gzip"
    ],
    "order": [
      "Define the middlewares' load order by putting their name in this array is the right order"
    ],
    "after": [
      "parser",
      "router",
      "serve-react"
    ]
  }
}

Answer 2

If somebody wants to know if Muhammad Ahmad's solution works - yes, it works.

Initially, I worked exclusively with the MERN stack and used two folders - one for the client, the other for the server. Only package.json was at the root. Everything worked fine on Heroku, so I didn't expect to find it difficult to switch the backend to Strapi...

Then I decided to try to replace the server side (Express) to Strapi. After that, there was a problem of deploying this whole case to Heroku and running it on single Heroku application.

So, the project structure is:

/root 
      - /client (React UI)
      - /server (Strapi)
      - package.json

In order to make the whole thing work together, it is necessary to amend a little change inside

./middlewares/serve-react/index.js:

 const staticDir = path.resolve(strapi.dir, clientBuildPath || strapi.config.paths.static);

where clientBuildPath is ../client/build.