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Deploy Serverless Express Application to Vercel

Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2025

Vercel is a serverless cloud-based hosting solution to host front-end and serverless applications. Express is a Node.JS framework and deploying serverless express application aids cost-cutting to nearly zero. Although the traditional way of deploying to the server is expensive and there is a limit on API calls plus you may need backend developers when the product is  Scaled to a higher level. Therefore, we must learn how to deploy the serverless express application to Vercel.

Features of Vercel: 

  • Deploying on Vercel is easy for developers.
  • Auto production deployment when code is merged with the main branch on GitHub.
  • You can monitor the analytics of your website visually.
  • You can add a custom domain to it after you purchase the domain on Vercel or configure DNS records.
  • Build logs are available for developers to track their source code in production.
  • Provide Serverless functions feature that can automatically scale up when traffic increases on your website.  

Prerequisites: Node.js must be installed.  If you haven't installed it yet, please refer to this article.

 

Steps to set up Vercel Account:

Go to the Vercel Website and Register with your Email or through your  GitHub account.

 Steps to build  simple node.js express application:

  • Make a folder on your Desktop, and open it.  Initialize it to build the  package.json file through the following command.
npm init -y
  • Install express.js
npm install express
  • Make a folder named api and an index.js file inside that folder. The api folder will contain your server-side code. Let's create a simple Nodejs-express web API. (copy and paste below simple express.js code snippet).
  • Now paste the following script to the vercel.json file. 
{
 "rewrites": [{ 
 "source": "/api/(.*)", 
 "destination": "/api" 
 }]
}
  • Run the API locally at localhost:8080/api
node api/index
👁 Image
 
  • install Vercel CLI  globally  on your device using the following command:
npm i -g vercel
  • Check if Vercel is installed in your system by the following command.
vercel --version
  • Then login to your Vercel account through this Vercel CLI command.
vercel login
  • Now deploy the serverless express application to Vercel, and write the following command to the terminal.
 vercel

The command will show the latest Vercel version and ask the following questions:

  • Set up and deploy “~/projectname”? [Y/n]:
  • Which scope do you want to deploy to?
  • Link to an existing project? [y/n]
  • What’s your project name?
  • In which directory is your code located?
  • Want to override the settings? [y/n]

Further, if you want to deploy it to the production run the command:

vercel --prod

After the above deployment process is done, visit the Vercel website and your project will be deployed there.    

example: https://geeksapi-panwarayush.vercel.app/api
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