Deploy Rails to Heroku

Background

After developing a Rails app locally, the next step is to put it online. After developing a Rails app and previewing it locally on your computer, the next step is to put it online so others can see it. This is called deploying your app.

Heroku is a popular hosting service that is free to start using. Here’s how to deploy your Rails app to Heroku.

Instructions

1. Create a new Heroku account.

2. Install the Heroku Toolbelt on your computer.

3. In the terminal, log in using the email address and password you used when creating your Heroku account:

    $ heroku login

4. In Gemfile, add the pg gem to your Rails project. Change:

    gem sqlite

   to

    gem 'sqlite3', group: :development
    gem 'pg', '0.18.1', group: :production

5. In Gemfile, add the rails_12factor gem::

    gem 'rails_12factor', group: :production

6. In the terminal, install the gems specified in the Gemfile:

    $ bundle install

7. Ensure config/database.yml is using the postgresql adapter. Change:

    production:
      <<: *default
      database: db/production.sqlite3

   to

    production:
      <<: *default
      adapter: postgresql
      database: db/production.sqlite3

8. Commit your changes to git:

    $ git add .
    $ git commit -m "Heroku config"

9. In the terminal, create an app on Heroku:

    $ heroku create

10. Push your code to Heroku on the main branch:

    $ git push heroku main

    Note: If you’re unable to push your code, you may have skipped a step or have a differently named branch.

11. If you are using the database in your application, migrate the database by running:

    $ heroku run rake db:migrate

12. If you need to seed your database with data, run:

    $ heroku run rake db:seed

13. Get the URL of your app and visit it in the browser:

    $ heroku apps:info

    In the output, copy the address in the Web URL field. Open a new tab in your browser, and visit your app.

Check out Heroku’s Rails docs for more information.