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Ownkube

Deploy Express

Deploy an Express API on Ownkube in minutes. Push your repo and Ownkube builds it and ships it, and you get a live URL with automatic TLS. Managed Postgres, logs, metrics, and one-click rollbacks come built in. No cloud account to start.

What you’ll need

Section titled “What you’ll need”
  • An Express app in a GitHub or GitLab repository
  • About five minutes

Deploy it

Section titled “Deploy it”

  1. Connect your repo

    Sign in at app.ownkube.io/login, open Settings, and connect the GitHub App (or GitLab) so Ownkube can reach your repository. Already have a prebuilt image in a registry? Point Ownkube at it instead. See Registries.

  2. Create a Web deployment

    From your dashboard, choose Create deployment, pick Web, and select your Express repo. Ownkube builds it and pushes the image to a registry it manages for you.

  3. Set the port

    Pass 0.0.0.0 as the host to app.listen, not localhost, so the app is reachable, and read the port from process.env.PORT. 3000 is a common default; set that as the port so traffic routes to your app. You can change it later in Settings.

  4. Add environment variables

    Add any KEY=value pairs your app reads, and mark secrets with the Secret toggle. See Environment variables.

  5. Deploy

    Click Create deployment. The deployment page streams the build, then startup and health checks. When the status goes healthy, open the generated hostname on the Overview tab. Your Express app is live, with TLS included.

Notes for Express

Section titled “Notes for Express”

app.listen(0.0.0.0)

Pass 0.0.0.0 as the host to app.listen, not localhost, so the app is reachable from outside the container.

Read process.env.PORT

Read the port from process.env.PORT (falling back to a default for local dev) so it matches the port you set in Ownkube.

A health route

A lightweight /health route that returns 200 makes the readiness check fast and reliable.

Bring your own Dockerfile

Want full control of the build? Add a Dockerfile to your repo and Ownkube uses it, reading the port from its EXPOSE line.

Add a database

Section titled “Add a database”

Need Postgres? Add a Database in one click and Ownkube injects the connection string as DATABASE_URL (plus PGHOST, PGUSER, and friends) into your app. See Databases.

Scale and observe

Section titled “Scale and observe”

Once you’re running, turn on autoscaling on CPU and memory, watch logs and metrics on every deployment, and roll back a bad deploy in one click.

Quickstart The full signup-to-live-app path, any stack.
Databases Attach managed Postgres to your Express API.