I have developed a Shopify public app and am currently planning its production deployment.
Shopify’s documentation recommends platforms such as Google Cloud, Fly.io, and Render. However, I would like to hear from developers who have real-world experience running Shopify apps in production.
A few details about my setup:
The app uses PostgreSQL as its database instead of the default SQLite setup provided in the Shopify app template.
I expect the number of installations and overall traffic to grow over time, so scalability is an important consideration.
I am looking for a platform that can handle future growth efficiently, ideally with auto-scaling capabilities.
Reliability, performance, database management, and operational costs are also important factors.
For developers who have deployed Shopify public apps in production, which hosting platform would you recommend and why? While Shopify’s documentation suggests Google Cloud, Fly.io, and Render, I am also interested in hearing about other platforms that may be better suited for a scalable Shopify app using PostgreSQL.
I would appreciate any recommendations, lessons learned, or platform comparisons based on your experience.
Ran a few Shopify apps in production, and the hosting platform matters less than how you handle two Shopify-specific things.
First, webhooks arrive in bursts (bulk ops, app uninstall waves) and each one expects a 200 inside 5s or Shopify retries, which compounds the spike. Ack immediately and process async on a queue, otherwise a busy store can knock the app over at the worst moment.
Second, with Postgres your real constraint is connection limits, not CPU. Those webhook bursts open far more connections than steady traffic, so put PgBouncer or a managed pool in front early. Render and Railway both give you managed Postgres with pooling and are the least ops for a single app. Fly is worth it if you genuinely need multi-region, otherwise it is more to babysit.
What is the webhook volume looking like for your app, and are you processing them inline or already queueing?
At this stage, I’m mainly evaluating hosting platforms for deploying a Shopify app and understanding the pros and cons of the available options. Your points about webhook handling, asynchronous processing, connection pooling, and PostgreSQL scaling are very helpful, and I’ll definitely keep them in mind as I move forward with development and deployment.
I appreciate you sharing your production experience.