Next.js on AWS with SST

Create and deploy a Next.js app to AWS with SST.

There are two ways to deploy a Next.js app to AWS with SST.

Serverless with OpenNext
Containers with Docker

We’ll use both to build a couple of simple apps below.

Examples

We also have a few other Next.js examples that you can refer to.

Serverless

We are going to create a Next.js app, add an S3 Bucket for file uploads, and deploy it using OpenNext and the Nextjs component.

Before you get started, make sure to configure your AWS credentials.

1. Create a project

Let’s start by creating our app.

npx create-next-app@latest aws-nextjs
cd aws-nextjs

We are picking TypeScript and not selecting ESLint.

Init SST

Now let’s initialize SST in our app.

npx sst@latest init

Select the defaults and pick AWS. This’ll create a sst.config.ts file in your project root.

Start dev mode

Run the following to start dev mode. This’ll start SST and your Next.js app.

npx sst dev

Once complete, click on MyWeb in the sidebar and open your Next.js app in your browser.

2. Add an S3 Bucket

Let’s allow public access to our S3 Bucket for file uploads. Update your sst.config.ts.

const bucket = new sst.aws.Bucket("MyBucket", {
  access: "public"
});

Add this above the Nextjs component.

Link the bucket

Now, link the bucket to our Next.js app.

new sst.aws.Nextjs("MyWeb", {
  link: [bucket]
});

3. Create an upload form

Add a form client component in components/form.tsx.

"use client";

import styles from "./form.module.css";

export default function Form({ url }: { url: string }) {
  return (
    <form
      className={styles.form}
      onSubmit={async (e) => {
        e.preventDefault();

        const file = (e.target as HTMLFormElement).file.files?.[0] ?? null;

        const image = await fetch(url, {
          body: file,
          method: "PUT",
          headers: {
            "Content-Type": file.type,
            "Content-Disposition": `attachment; filename="${file.name}"`,
          },
        });

        window.location.href = image.url.split("?")[0];
      }}
    >
      <input name="file" type="file" accept="image/png, image/jpeg" />
      <button type="submit">Upload</button>
    </form>
  );
}

Add some styles.

.form {
  padding: 2rem;
  border-radius: 0.5rem;
  background-color: var(--gray-alpha-100);
}

.form input {
  margin-right: 1rem;
}

.form button {
  appearance: none;
  padding: 0.5rem 0.75rem;
  font-weight: 500;
  font-size: 0.875rem;
  border-radius: 0.375rem;
  background-color: transparent;
  font-family: var(--font-geist-sans);
  border: 1px solid var(--gray-alpha-200);
}

.form button:active:enabled {
  background-color: var(--gray-alpha-200);
}

4. Generate a pre-signed URL

When our app loads, we’ll generate a pre-signed URL for the file upload and render the form with it. Replace your Home component in app/page.tsx.

export const dynamic = "force-dynamic";

export default async function Home() {
  const command = new PutObjectCommand({
    Key: crypto.randomUUID(),
    Bucket: Resource.MyBucket.name,
  });
  const url = await getSignedUrl(new S3Client({}), command);

  return (
    <div className={styles.page}>
      <main className={styles.main}>
        <Form url={url} />
      </main>
    </div>
  );
}

We need the force-dynamic because we don’t want Next.js to cache the pre-signed URL.

Add the relevant imports.

import { Resource } from "sst";
import Form from "@/components/form";
import { getSignedUrl } from "@aws-sdk/s3-request-presigner";
import { S3Client, PutObjectCommand } from "@aws-sdk/client-s3";

And install the npm packages.

npm install @aws-sdk/client-s3 @aws-sdk/s3-request-presigner

Test your app

Head over to the local Next.js app in your browser, http://localhost:3000 and try uploading an image. You should see it upload and then download the image.

5. Deploy your app

Now let’s deploy your app to AWS.

npx sst deploy --stage production

You can use any stage name here but it’s good to create a new stage for production.

Congrats! Your app should now be live!

Containers

We are going to create a Next.js app, add an S3 Bucket for file uploads, and deploy it in a container with the Cluster component.

Before you get started, make sure to configure your AWS credentials.

1. Create a project

Let’s start by creating our app.

npx create-next-app@latest aws-nextjs-container
cd aws-nextjs-container

We are picking TypeScript and not selecting ESLint.

Init SST

Now let’s initialize SST in our app.

npx sst@latest init

Select the defaults and pick AWS. This’ll create a sst.config.ts file in your project root.

2. Add a Service

To deploy our Next.js app in a container, we’ll use AWS Fargate with Amazon ECS. Replace the run function in your sst.config.ts.

async run() {
  const vpc = new sst.aws.Vpc("MyVpc");
  const cluster = new sst.aws.Cluster("MyCluster", { vpc });

  cluster.addService("MyService", {
    loadBalancer: {
      ports: [{ listen: "80/http", forward: "3000/http" }],
    },
    dev: {
      command: "npm run dev",
    },
  });
}

This creates a VPC, and an ECS Cluster with a Fargate service in it.

The dev.command tells SST to instead run our Next.js app locally in dev mode.

Start dev mode

Run the following to start dev mode. This’ll start SST and your Next.js app.

npx sst dev

Once complete, click on MyService in the sidebar and open your Next.js app in your browser.

3. Add an S3 Bucket

Let’s allow public access to our S3 Bucket for file uploads. Update your sst.config.ts.

const bucket = new sst.aws.Bucket("MyBucket", {
  access: "public"
});

Add this below the Vpc component.

Link the bucket

Now, link the bucket to the container.

cluster.addService("MyService", {
  // ...
  link: [bucket],
});

This will allow us to reference the bucket in our Next.js app.

4. Create an upload form

Add a form client component in components/form.tsx.

"use client";

import styles from "./form.module.css";

export default function Form({ url }: { url: string }) {
  return (
    <form
      className={styles.form}
      onSubmit={async (e) => {
        e.preventDefault();

        const file = (e.target as HTMLFormElement).file.files?.[0] ?? null;

        const image = await fetch(url, {
          body: file,
          method: "PUT",
          headers: {
            "Content-Type": file.type,
            "Content-Disposition": `attachment; filename="${file.name}"`,
          },
        });

        window.location.href = image.url.split("?")[0];
      }}
    >
      <input name="file" type="file" accept="image/png, image/jpeg" />
      <button type="submit">Upload</button>
    </form>
  );
}

Add some styles.

.form {
  padding: 2rem;
  border-radius: 0.5rem;
  background-color: var(--gray-alpha-100);
}

.form input {
  margin-right: 1rem;
}

.form button {
  appearance: none;
  padding: 0.5rem 0.75rem;
  font-weight: 500;
  font-size: 0.875rem;
  border-radius: 0.375rem;
  background-color: transparent;
  font-family: var(--font-geist-sans);
  border: 1px solid var(--gray-alpha-200);
}

.form button:active:enabled {
  background-color: var(--gray-alpha-200);
}

5. Generate a pre-signed URL

When our app loads, we’ll generate a pre-signed URL for the file upload and render the form with it. Replace your Home component in app/page.tsx.

export const dynamic = "force-dynamic";

export default async function Home() {
  const command = new PutObjectCommand({
    Key: crypto.randomUUID(),
    Bucket: Resource.MyBucket.name,
  });
  const url = await getSignedUrl(new S3Client({}), command);

  return (
    <div className={styles.page}>
      <main className={styles.main}>
        <Form url={url} />
      </main>
    </div>
  );
}

We need the force-dynamic because we don’t want Next.js to cache the pre-signed URL.

Add the relevant imports.

import { Resource } from "sst";
import Form from "@/components/form";
import { getSignedUrl } from "@aws-sdk/s3-request-presigner";
import { S3Client, PutObjectCommand } from "@aws-sdk/client-s3";

And install the npm packages.

npm install @aws-sdk/client-s3 @aws-sdk/s3-request-presigner

Test your app

Head over to the local Next.js app in your browser, http://localhost:3000 and try uploading an image. You should see it upload and then download the image.

6. Deploy your app

To build our app for production, we’ll enable Next.js’s standalone output. Let’s update our next.config.mjs.

const nextConfig: NextConfig = {
  /* config options here */
  output: "standalone"
};

Now to deploy our app we’ll add a Dockerfile.

FROM node:lts-alpine AS base

# Stage 1: Install dependencies
FROM base AS deps
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json package-lock.json* ./
COPY sst-env.d.ts* ./
RUN npm ci

# Stage 2: Build the application
FROM base AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=deps /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY . .

# If static pages need linked resources
# ARG SST_RESOUCE_MyResource

RUN npm run build

# Stage 3: Production server
FROM base AS runner
WORKDIR /app
ENV NODE_ENV=production
COPY --from=builder /app/.next/standalone ./
COPY --from=builder /app/.next/static ./.next/static

EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "server.js"]

This builds our Next.js app in a Docker image.

If your Next.js app is building static pages that need linked resources, you can need to declare them in your Dockerfile. For example, if we need the linked MyBucket component from above.

ARG SST_RESOURCE_MyBucket

You’ll need to do this for each linked resource.

Let’s also add a .dockerignore file in the root.

.git
.next
node_modules

Now to build our Docker image and deploy we run:

npx sst deploy --stage production

You can use any stage name here but it’s good to create a new stage for production.

Congrats! Your app should now be live!

Connect the console

As a next step, you can setup the SST Console to git push to deploy your app and view logs from it.

You can create a free account and connect it to your AWS account.