Deploying a Next.js Application on DigitalOcean Droplets

This document provides a step-by-step guide for deploying a Next.js application on a DigitalOcean Droplet using Node.js, PM2, Nginx, PostgreSQL, and Certbot. By the end of this guide, you will have a production-ready Next.js app running with HTTPS and automatic deployment via GitHub Actions.

Prerequisites

A DigitalOcean Droplet running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (or newer).
A GitHub/GitLab repository containing your Next.js application.
SSH access to the Droplet.
A registered domain (e.g., from Porkbun, Namecheap, Cloudflare, etc.).

Part 1: Provisioning a DigitalOcean Droplet

1. Create a Droplet

From the DigitalOcean Dashboard:

Go to Create > Droplets.
Select Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as the base image.
Choose CPU, memory, and disk resources according to your workload.
Configure SSH keys (recommended) or a root password.
Click Create Droplet.

New Repo

You finish configuring more details that you want your VPS server to have. Once you have configured all the features you want this droplet to have, click on create droplets. New Repo Excellent!! You just created your first Droplets!

2. Initial Server Configuration

we access through ssh

ssh root@<SERVER_IP>

Update package:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Create a non-root user with sudo privileges:

adduser <username>
usermod -aG sudo <username>

Login with the new user:

su - <username>

Note

Always use non-root users for application deployments.

Part 2: Create a Workflow

Once our project is uploaded, we go to Git Actions and we'll see these workflow suggestions. We choose the node one.

1. Create Workflow File

New Repo We configure this file as follows.

name: Node.js CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [ "main" ]

jobs:
  build:

    runs-on: self-hosted #It means that everything will be done within the server

    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [22.x] #depending on the versions we have installed

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
      uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      with:
        node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
        cache: 'npm'
    - run: npm ci --no-audit --no-fund
    - run: npm run build --if-present
    - run: pm2 reload 0

Once the previous modifications are completed, we click on start commit. New Repo

Note

This adds a new file and directory to our repository. We'll then need to git pull these changes in our local project.

2. Create Runner

You go to settings > actions > runner New Repo We select the new self-hosted runner button

New Repo We select the operating system of our server and its architecture.

New Repo then we have to copy and paste these commands into our server.

New Repo We enter our terminal through the SSH port that Digital Ocean gave us.

We log in with our user that we made administrator

ssh root@146.190.210.81
su - [name]

Then enter the commands that Runner gave us to configure our server and have it listen to our changes.

Part 3. Configure PM2

This service allows our application to always run in the background.

1. Install NVM

Before that we must install nvm

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.3/install.sh | bash

Note

If we run # nvm in our console it does not mean that it has not been installed but that we have to close the section and re-enter.

If we do not want to do this then we run the following command from our powershell.

source ~/.bashrc

We can check that our nvm is now running.

nvm

Now we install the most updated version of NVM stable.

nvm install --lts

We can check that we have node and npm installed

node --version
npm --version

2. Install PM2

npm install -g pm2

We check that we have PM2 installed ``` powershell pm2 --version

we locate ourselves in our archive where our project is.
``` powershell
cd /actions-runner/[project]/[project]/[project-github]
pm2 start npm -- start

New Repo If we go to our browser, we can see that our website is already running. We'll have to add the corresponding port for now. 146.190.210:3000

Part 4. Execute svc.

This allows our server to listen for any changes to our main branch.

sudo ./svc.sh status
sudo ./svc.sh install
sudo ./svc.sh start

We can check that it is running on GitHub. New Repo

To stop this service we use

sudo ./svc.sh stop

If there is an error with pm2 and github actions the solution is here which basically is to copy the following codes:

sudo ln -s "$NVM_DIR/versions/node/$(nvm version)/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/node"

sudo ln -s "$NVM_DIR/versions/node/$(nvm version)/bin/npm" "/usr/local/bin/npm"

sudo ln -s "$NVM_DIR/versions/node/$(nvm version)/bin/pm2" "/usr/local/bin/pm2"

Part 5. Install and configure nginx + SSL

Since you'll need HTTPS, nginx is actually the easiest way to handle SSL certificates:

sudo apt install nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y

To check that nginx is running:

sudo service nginx status

If it's active, we can verify that it's running on our server's IP address without adding the :3000. Now, to configure our website on this port, we enter the following address.

cd /etc/nginx/sites-available/

If we run ls we'll see a default configuration file called default. We can modify this to view our site directly, but it's good practice to create a new one. To do this, we'll use the nano command and assign it a name.

Create nginx config for your site

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/your-domain.com

Add this config (replace your-domain.com):

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name your-domain.com www.your-domain.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }
}

bash# Enable the site

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/your-domain.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Get SSL certificate

sudo certbot --nginx -d your-domain.com -d www.your-domain.com

Author: Andrés Ribera E. Last updated: August 24, 2025