Using PM2 with Heroku

This page will guide you step by step through the PM2 integration with Heroku.

We will use Git and the Heroku CLI.

Prepare your app

Set your ecosystem file

Generate an ecosystem.config.js template with:

pm2 init

Modify the ecosystem file to match your needs:

module.exports = {
  apps : [{
    name: "app",
    script: "./app.js",
    instances: "max",
    env: {
      NODE_ENV: "development",
    },
    env_production: {
      NODE_ENV: "production",
    }
  }]
}

Learn more about ecosystem file here.

We recommend to use the cluster mode with Heroku, as each dyno has multi-core CPU.

Learn more about the cluster mode.

Add PM2 as a module

Add pm2 as a dependency to your projet.

With npm:

npm install pm2

With yarn:

yarn add pm2

Set your package.json

In your package.json, modify your start script like the following:

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "pm2-runtime start ecosystem.config.js --env production"  
  }
}

Deploy with Heroku

Create an account on Heroku

Install the CLI

Follow the instructions to install here.

Then, run heroku login to connect the CLI to your account.

Init your Heroku app

We will first create a new empty application on Heroku and an associated empty Git repository.

Run this command from your app root folder:

heroku create

Creating app... done, ⬢ guarded-island-32432
https://guarded-island-32432.herokuapp.com/ | https://git.heroku.com/guarded-island-32432.git

You now have a new git remote named heroku. If you push to this repository, your code is automatically deployed at the given URL.

Deploy your app on Heroku

Add and commit all your changes, then run:

git push heroku master
Initializing repository, done.
updating 'refs/heads/master'
remote: Compressing source files... done.
remote: Building source:
...
remote:
remote: Verifying deploy... done.
To https://git.heroku.com/aqueous-temple-78487.git

You are ready

That’s all! The last line of the deployment will give you the URL where your app is available.

Next Steps

Complete your configuration with the Ecosystem File.

Monitor your app on a web dashboard, with PM2 Plus.