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How to deploy a React Router app in 2026: the template's Dockerfile, one command and HTTPS

By the Pethost team · 10 October 2026 · 7 min read

You made an app with create-react-router, it renders on the server, and you want it online at an address with HTTPS. The default template already has a Dockerfile, and on Pethost that is all a project needs: run pethost deploy in the app's folder. The template was built and started in 11 seconds the first time, and answered 200 at its new address.

What you need to deploy a React Router app in 2026

Three things: the app, the pethost command and a Pethost account.

The app here is the default template, with server rendering and Tailwind CSS:

npx create-react-router@latest my-app

It leaves package.json, package-lock.json, the app/ folder and a Dockerfile. Its scripts are the ones the Dockerfile runs:

"scripts": {
  "build": "react-router build",
  "dev": "react-router dev",
  "start": "react-router-serve ./build/server/index.js",
  "typecheck": "react-router typegen && tsc"
}

The command is one program, installed by one line. Every command it has is in the CLI's reference.

curl -fsSL https://pethost.dev/install.sh | sh      # macOS, Linux
irm https://pethost.dev/install.ps1 | iex           # Windows, in PowerShell

The account needs a plan. If you are not signed in, pethost deploy opens your browser and signs you in. If you have no plan yet, it shows you where to choose one, and waits.

Deploy the React Router app with one command

Go to the app's folder and run pethost deploy. This is the whole screen, for the default template:

$ cd my-app
$ pethost deploy
Name it [my-app]:    it will live at https://my-app.sam.pethost.app
✓ Packed 22 files, 174 KB   (left out node_modules)
✓ Uploaded straight to your machine
✓ Built and started in 11 s
  · wrote compose.yaml for the Dockerfile: the service app, reading .env
✓ app listens on 3000 → https://my-app.sam.pethost.app
  It answers 200.

https://my-app.sam.pethost.app

Wrote .pethost (commit it). Next:   pethost logs -f   ·   pethost open

1. It asks one thing The project's name, which is the first word of its address. Enter takes the folder's name.
2. The folder goes to your machine Without node_modules: the build installs them there, from package-lock.json.
3. The machine builds the Dockerfile It is the template's own, unchanged. The line under it says the one thing the machine added: a Compose file around the Dockerfile, with a service called app.
4. The app starts and is asked The machine sees that the server listens on 3000 and sends the address there. Then pethost asks the address itself, and prints what it answered: 200.

We asked the deployed template what a visitor asks. The home page answered 200 with the server-rendered HTML, /favicon.ico answered 200, and an address with no route answered 404 with React Router's own error page.

The file .pethost says which project this folder is. Commit it, and the next deploy asks nothing.

The Dockerfile of the React Router template

This is the file create-react-router wrote, which the machine built as it is:

FROM node:24-alpine AS development-dependencies-env
COPY . /app
WORKDIR /app
RUN npm ci

FROM node:24-alpine AS production-dependencies-env
COPY ./package.json package-lock.json /app/
WORKDIR /app
RUN npm ci --omit=dev

FROM node:24-alpine AS build-env
COPY . /app/
COPY --from=development-dependencies-env /app/node_modules /app/node_modules
WORKDIR /app
RUN npm run build

FROM node:24-alpine
COPY ./package.json package-lock.json /app/
COPY --from=production-dependencies-env /app/node_modules /app/node_modules
COPY --from=build-env /app/build /app/build
WORKDIR /app
CMD ["npm", "run", "start"]

Three things to know about it on Pethost:

• It needs the lockfile. Both npm ci steps read package-lock.json, so keep it in the folder and in your repository.
• No port is declared. The file has no EXPOSE line and needs none: the machine finds the port the running server listens on.
• The app is small when it runs. The last stage holds the production dependencies and the build. The running template took 79 MB of memory.

An app that has no Dockerfile is not stuck. In a folder with neither a Dockerfile nor a Compose file, pethost deploy writes the Dockerfile for the kinds of project it knows, as it does for a Nuxt app, and for any other folder it says why it wrote none.

Change a route and deploy again

Edit a route and run the same command. The second deploy of the template took 6 seconds, because the machine keeps the build's layers:

$ pethost deploy
my-app (.pethost)
✓ Packed 23 files · uploaded · built and started in 6 s
  · wrote compose.yaml for the Dockerfile: the service app, reading .env
  · kept the project's x-pethost
  It answers 200.
https://my-app.sam.pethost.app

To deploy on every push instead, connect the repository once:

pethost github sam/my-app          # from now on, every push deploys itself

Pethost reads only the repositories you gave its GitHub App. If a deploy goes wrong, pethost rollback puts the version before it back, and your machine keeps the three versions before the current one. An AI agent can do all of this for you through Pethost's MCP server: how an agent deploys and looks after a project.

Environment variables and your own domain

A variable that a loader or an action reads on the server is one command. It asks for the value without showing it, puts it into the project's .env file on the machine, and later deploys keep it:

pethost env set SESSION_SECRET

Any name under your account's domain is an address at once, with HTTPS. A domain you own takes one command and one DNS record:

pethost domain add app.example.com

The command prints the record to make: a CNAME from your name to your machine's name. The certificate comes by itself once the name resolves, and renews itself. pethost password puts a password page in front of the whole app, for one that is not public yet.

What you get for the price

Pethost is €9.99 a month for everything you host, on 2 vCPU, 3 GB of memory and 30 GB of disk. The template's server took 79 MB of that memory, so the machine has room for the app's database, a worker and your other projects. There is no fee per project and nothing metered: server rendering is not billed by the request, and a busy month costs what a quiet one does.

• €9.99 a month for the whole machine
• 11 s to build and start the template, the first time
• 79 MB of memory for the running app

What is already done on it: HTTPS with certificates that renew themselves, deploys from GitHub, nightly backups kept for 14 days, SSH into any container, and every request counted, with the busiest paths and the error rate of the last 30 days. The machine is always on, so the first request of the morning never waits for a cold start. The plans are on the pricing part of the first page.

The screens are deploys of the default template that create-react-router writes, with React Router 8.4.0 and pethost 0.2.1, on a test machine of ours. The account in them is the example one, sam.

1. React Router: installation
2. React Router: deploying
3. React Router: the official templates
4. pethost, the command line of Pethost