Since [I’m](https://x.com/jdbothma/status/1100714277185433602) [terrible](https://x.com/erik_mh/status/1181399247763202048) [at](https://x.com/fcaivano/status/849084831959052288) [](https://x.com/erik_mh/status/1181399247763202048)[managing](https://x.com/lu_cyP/status/922346987487449088) my personal project’s servers I wanted to believe the hype around Serverless architectures. My intention was to go to a scenario where I don’t have to worry about scalability, OS vulnerabilities, web servers, SSL certificates or database backups. Time will tell but for now it seems that’s the case. ## The state where I was in To start experimenting with this technology I chose [GuriVR](https://gurivr.com). It was a Preact app with a tiny Express backend using MongoDB as the primary database, you can explore the old [codebase](https://github.com/OpenNewsLabs/guri-vr/tree/3f293ea45b421169e6a8559e3d5df49dcab829d4). It was hosted on a $10/month DigitalOcean droplet along with other apps and sites. ## Changing the mindset I looked at different platforms and frameworks and decided to give a chance to [Now](https://zeit.co) from Zeit, the magic **now** command played an important part in the decision. What I understood from the docs is that in the serverless world you get a kind of clean slate on every request. The goal is to return as fast as possible and avoid persistent connection. Firebase was a great fit for my need because it offers two products I needed to implement: Stateless authentication instead of the MongoDB backed user sessions in the old system and the **Firestore** database. One functionality I wasn’t giving up easily that I got for free in Firebase was the “passwordless” authentication. Besides the database and authentication provider change I haven’t had to change too much. The Frontend compiles to a static app that **Now** delivers super fast with their Smart CDN. The **Express** app was easy to convert. I just moved each endpoint to a separate file, matching the API structure. For the frontend I used @now/static and for the backend @now/node. Most of the ~10 hours I had to work on the migration where spent implementing the new firebase authentication and updating the database calls to use Firestore. I also moved the file uploads from AWS S3 to the Firestore Storage service just because I thought it was better to have all the services in the same provider and dashboard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. ## Platform specific configuration Besides moving the backend endpoints to different files exporting the lambda functions I had to create a now.json file to hep **Now** figure out how my project should be deployed. This was the first time I did this and I’m sure there are better ways to do it but this is what I got:tl;dr: I migrated a small real-world app from Express + MongoDB to Now + Firebase. I’m happy I was able to do it in ~10 hours and I don’t need to maintain or spend money on servers (at least for now).
{
"version": 2,
"name": "gurivr",
"builds": [
{ "src": "api/**", "use": "@now/node" },
{ "src": "client/dist/**", "use": "@now/static" }
],
"routes": [
{ "src": "/api/preview", "dest": "api/preview.js" },
{ "src": "/api/stories", "dest": "api/stories.js" },
{ "src": "/api/stories/([^/]+)", "dest": "api/story.js?id=$1" },
{ "src": "/api/assets/search", "dest": "api/assets/search.js", "headers": { "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "*" } },
{ "src": "/(login|guide|stories)", "dest": "/client/dist/index.html" },
{ "src": "/stories/create", "dest": "/client/dist/index.html" },
{ "src": "/(.*)", "dest": "/client/dist/$1" }
],
"env": {
"FIREBASE_ADMIN": "@firebase-admin",
"FLICKR_SECRET_KEY": "@flickr-secret-key",
"GMAPS_SECRET_KEY": "@gmaps-secret-key",
"FREESOUND_SECRET_KEY": "@freesound-secret-key",
"STORAGE_BUCKET": "@storage-bucket"
}
}