Netlify deployment setup: builds, domains, functions

Your CI/CD pipeline for JAMstack stalled?

Building your React SPA takes 15 minutes, after deployment links break due to incorrect redirects, and previews for pull requests have to be configured manually? We've encountered this dozens of times. Our team (5+ years of experience with Netlify and 50+ configured projects) solves these problems in a couple of hours. We guarantee: after our configuration, the average build time will drop to 2–3 minutes, and branch previews will appear within a minute.

We are engineers who work with Netlify, Vercel, and Cloudflare Pages every day. We'll set up deployment turnkey: from initial repository connection to production deployment with a custom domain, SSL, and monitoring.

What problems we solve with Netlify deployment

Build errors due to environment incompatibility

Wrong Node.js version, cluttered npm cache, or build scripts using global dependencies. In netlify.toml we strictly pin the Node version, NPM_FLAGS, and environment: NODE_VERSION = "20", NPM_FLAGS = "--prefer-offline".

Slow deployment and exceeding limits

Standard build without caching can take 10+ minutes. We use Netlify Large Media for images and cache node_modules between builds. Below is a comparison of Free and Pro limits:

Netlify automatically cancels a build if it runs longer than 15 minutes. — Netlify Documentation

Incorrect redirects and headers

SPAs require redirecting all routes to index.html, otherwise 404. API proxies are often forgotten. Our netlify.toml configuration covers these cases:

[[redirects]]
  from = "/*"
  to = "/index.html"
  status = 200

[[redirects]]
  from = "/api/*"
  to = "https://api.example.com/:splat"
  status = 200
  force = true

How we set up deployment in 30 minutes (real case)

Project: SPA on Vue 3 with a contact form and custom API on Netlify Functions. Originally deployed via GitHub Pages — manual, without previews. What we did:

1. Created netlify.toml with context separation (production, branch-deploy, deploy-preview).
2. Configured the contact.ts function to send emails via Resend.
3. Connected GitHub Actions for deployment — only on push to main and develop.
4. Enabled Netlify Forms as fallback for data collection.

Result: automatic deployment, preview for PR in 1 minute, saving 4 hours of manual work per week. Netlify is configured 2–3 times faster than Vercel for static sites.

Complete netlify.toml configuration

[build]
  command = "npm run build"
  publish = "dist"
  functions = "netlify/functions"

[build.environment]
  NODE_VERSION = "20"
  NPM_FLAGS = "--prefix=/dev/null"

# SPA: redirect all routes to index.html
[[redirects]]
  from = "/*"
  to = "/index.html"
  status = 200

# API proxy
[[redirects]]
  from = "/api/*"
  to = "https://api.example.com/:splat"
  status = 200
  force = true

# Custom headers
[[headers]]
  for = "/*"
  [headers.values]
    X-Frame-Options = "DENY"
    X-Content-Type-Options = "nosniff"
    Referrer-Policy = "strict-origin-when-cross-origin"

[[headers]]
  for = "/assets/*"
  [headers.values]
    Cache-Control = "public, max-age=31536000, immutable"

# Split testing (A/B)
[context.deploy-preview]
  command = "npm run build:preview"

[context.branch-deploy]
  command = "npm run build:staging"

Netlify Functions for contact form

// netlify/functions/contact.ts
import type { Handler, HandlerEvent } from '@netlify/functions';

export const handler: Handler = async (event: HandlerEvent) => {
    if (event.httpMethod !== 'POST') {
        return { statusCode: 405, body: 'Method Not Allowed' };
    }

    const { name, email, message } = JSON.parse(event.body || '{}');

    // Send via Nodemailer or Resend
    await sendEmail({ name, email, message });

    return {
        statusCode: 200,
        body: JSON.stringify({ success: true }),
        headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
    };
};

Alternative: Netlify built-in forms

Suitable when custom validation or CRM integration is not needed.

<form name="contact" method="POST" data-netlify="true" netlify-honeypot="bot-field">
    <input type="hidden" name="form-name" value="contact">
    <p class="hidden">
        <label>Don't fill this: <input name="bot-field"></label>
    </p>
    <input type="text" name="name" required>
    <input type="email" name="email" required>
    <textarea name="message" required></textarea>
    <button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>

Submissions are available in Netlify Dashboard → Forms. Notifications can be configured there (email, Slack webhook).

GitHub Actions + Netlify CLI

name: Deploy to Netlify

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci && npm run build

      - name: Deploy to Netlify
        run: |
          npx netlify-cli deploy \
            --dir=dist \
            --site=${{ secrets.NETLIFY_SITE_ID }} \
            --auth=${{ secrets.NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN }} \
            ${{ github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' && '--prod' || '' }}

Why Netlify Functions are not suitable for heavy computations?

The time limit (10 seconds on Free plan, 26 on Pro) prevents using them for video processing, PDF generation, or complex ETL tasks. For such cases, we connect external services: AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, or specialized queues. Netlify Functions are ideal for lightweight API proxies, sending emails, and webhooks.

Netlify vs Vercel vs Cloudflare Pages: what to choose?

Netlify wins in simplicity of form setup and redirects, Vercel in Edge Functions performance, Cloudflare in global network and pricing.

Process

1. Analysis — examine current repository, build scripts, dependencies.
2. Design — determine contexts (production, staging, preview), environment variables, functions.
3. Implementation — write netlify.toml, functions, CI/CD (GitHub Actions / GitLab CI).
4. Testing — deploy to preview environment, check redirects, headers, and build time.
5. Launch — switch DNS, check SSL, monitor logs.

Timeline and cost

Typical project (SPA/static) setup — 4–8 hours. For projects with custom functions and integrations — up to 16 hours. Cost is calculated individually after auditing your repository. On average, the project pays for itself by speeding up deployment 3–5 times. Manual deployment time savings can be up to $800–1200 per month at an average developer rate.

What is included in the work

• Working netlify.toml configuration with context separation.
• Custom Netlify domain setup and automatic SSL.
• Development of up to 5 Netlify Functions (contact forms, API proxies).
• Integration with GitHub Actions / GitLab CI.
• Support documentation (how to add a new function, change variables).
• 2 weeks of free support after deployment.

Why trust us with the setup?

• 5+ years of experience with Netlify and JAMstack projects.
• 50+ successful deployment setups for React, Vue, Angular, and Gatsby.
• Certified specialists in Netlify and CI/CD (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI).
• Stability guarantee — after deployment, all parameters are fixed and do not change without your knowledge.

Contact us for an audit of your current deployment — we'll identify problem areas and suggest optimization. Order a turnkey Netlify setup and forget about manual deployments forever.

We regularly encounter a situation: "The site is not opening" at 3 a.m. — and it turns out that the VPS disk is full because nginx logs haven't been rotated for six months. Or the server went down under load on the day of an advertising campaign launch because the shared hosting had a limit of 50 concurrent connections. Setting up hosting and deployment is not about "where it's cheaper" but about what happens when something goes wrong. Our team helps avoid such incidents by designing infrastructure that accounts for real load patterns.

When to choose Vercel and Netlify?

Vercel is built for Next.js — deploy in one push, preview deployments for every PR, automatic CDN, Edge Functions, ISR without configuration. For frontend projects and JAMstack, it's the optimal choice: no operational overhead, time-to-deploy measured in minutes.

Real limitations: Vercel Serverless Functions run in us-east-1 by default (latency for Europe +80–100ms), Function timeout 300 seconds on Pro, Bandwidth 1TB/month on Pro. For heavy backend, you need workers or a separate server.

Netlify is closer to static sites and Edge Functions based on Deno Deploy. Build minutes are the main limitation on the free tier.

Why is Docker the foundation of predictable deployment?

"It works on my machine" — classic. Docker solves this through environment containerization. But a bad Dockerfile creates new problems.

A typical mistake: copying everything into the image without .dockerignore, resulting in an 800MB image instead of 80MB. node_modules inside the image weighs as much. Correct approach: multi-stage build.

FROM node:20-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --only=production
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

FROM node:20-alpine AS runner
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=builder /app/.next ./.next
COPY --from=builder /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=builder /app/package.json ./package.json
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["npm", "start"]

Final image: 180MB instead of 1.2GB. CI build time is reduced due to layer caching — if package.json hasn't changed, the layer with npm ci is taken from cache.

Docker Compose for local development and simple production scenarios: application + PostgreSQL + Redis in one configuration. For production on a single server, it's a perfectly viable option if there's no requirement for horizontal scaling.

More about containerization — Wikipedia: Docker.

How to set up Nginx as a reverse proxy?

Nginx in front of the application is standard for VPS and dedicated servers. Main functions: SSL termination, gzip, static files, rate limiting, upstream load balancing.

A configuration often done incorrectly: worker_processes auto — number of processes equals CPU count. worker_connections 1024 — that's 1024 per worker process. With 4 CPUs and 1024 connections = 4096 concurrent connections. For a high-traffic site, you need worker_connections 4096 and set keepalive_timeout 65.

For static assets with hash in the filename:

location ~* \.(js|css|woff2|png|webp)$ {
    expires 1y;
    add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
}

immutable tells the browser: don't revalidate this file even on hard refresh. This only works correctly with content-hashed filenames (which Vite/webpack do by default). Documentation — Wikipedia: Nginx.

AWS: flexibility and complexity

EC2 + Auto Scaling Group — classic for horizontal scaling. AMI with pre-installed application, Launch Template, ASG with min/desired/max instances, Application Load Balancer. When CPU > 70% for 3 minutes — scale out, when CPU < 30% for 15 minutes — scale in. Health check via ALB removes unhealthy instances from rotation.

ECS Fargate — containers without managing EC2. Deploy a Docker image, specify CPU/memory (512 CPU units = 0.5 vCPU, from 512MB memory), Fargate launches it. More expensive than Lambda, but no cold start and no timeout limitations. Suitable for long-running processes, WebSocket servers, heavy workers.

RDS for PostgreSQL with Multi-AZ: automatic failover in 1–2 minutes when primary fails. Read Replicas for scaling reads. RDS Proxy for connection pooling — Lambda functions cannot hold long-term connections, the proxy buffers this.

Kubernetes: when it is justified

K8s adds significant operational complexity. Justified when: multiple teams deploy independent services, fine-grained resource allocation per service is needed, canary deployments and blue/green without downtime are required.

AWS EKS, GKE, or managed k8s from Hetzner (cheaper). Helm charts for standard services. Horizontal Pod Autoscaler based on CPU and custom metrics (RPS via Prometheus).

For most startups and medium-sized projects, Kubernetes is overkill. ECS or Fly.io provide 80% of the capabilities with 20% of the operational complexity.

Monitoring and alerting

A server without monitoring is waiting for an incident. Minimal stack: Prometheus + Grafana (or Grafana Cloud for managed), alerting on disk > 80%, memory > 85%, CPU > 90% over 5 minutes, error rate > 1%. Uptime via Better Uptime or Upptime (self-hosted).

Logs: Loki + Grafana or CloudWatch Logs Insights. Structured JSON logs (winston, pino) are mandatory — otherwise, log searching becomes a pain.

What is included in hosting setup

• Audit of current infrastructure and load profiling
• Selection of target architecture (VPS, AWS, serverless, Kubernetes)
• Setting up CI/CD pipeline (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) with automatic deployment
• IaC via Terraform or Pulumi (infrastructure as code)
• Configuration of Nginx, SSL certificates, HTTP/2, brotli
• Monitoring and alerting (Prometheus + Grafana, PagerDuty)
• Documentation of runbooks and team training

Additionally, contact us if you need migration from current hosting or integration with external services.

Work process

1. Audit of current infrastructure (2–5 days)
2. Selection of target architecture with load and budget justification (1–3 days)
3. Setting up CI/CD pipeline (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) (2–5 days)
4. IaC via Terraform or Pulumi (3–10 days)
5. Setting up monitoring and alerting (2–5 days)
6. Documentation of runbooks and team training (1–3 days)

Our experience — 7 years on the market, over 50 projects, guarantee of operability after deployment.

Timeline

• Basic deployment on VPS with Docker + Nginx + CI/CD: 1–2 weeks.
• Setting up AWS infrastructure with Auto Scaling, RDS, CDN: 3–6 weeks.
• Migration to EKS from scratch: 6–12 weeks.
• Setting up Vercel/Netlify for JAMstack: 3–5 days.

The cost is calculated individually depending on complexity and scope of work. Get a consultation — we'll evaluate your architecture in one day.