Deploy and Release an in house developed App

Technical Q&A
1

Hi

Can someone please explain in what circumstances we need to deploy the app to a server outside shopify? It is very confusing. The app is private to our plus store and we are not going to share with any other stores or users? Can we deploy directly to Shopify and start using it or it has to deploy to an outside server(cloud)? it is deployed to dev store and I thin connected to localhost for testing. Thank you

2

Hi @sbeheshti Shopify is not a hosting provider.
It doesn’t not provide hosting for arbitrary code.
A shopify “app” is an integration between your code hosted elsewhere and shopify.
If it’s you or another developer step back and go through the provided tutorials that have deploy targets.

N.B. If this is about generated apps those are glorified SPA(single-pages ap) that connects to shopify’s existing backend it doesn’t make a new backend.

General troubleshooting

What app? “app” is ultimately meaninelss and doesn’t define anything like the goal or the technology stacks being used that inform actual decisions.
We’re not in the room with you don’t expect others to read your mind.
When seeking aid be SPECIFIC not vague or your gonna burn a LOT of money and time.

3

You only host the app fully on Shopify when it is a Checkout UI Extension / checkout extension, because that part runs on Shopify’s infrastructure after you deploy it to the Plus store.

For most other custom apps, the app code does not live inside Shopify. You still need to host it on an outside server or cloud service, and the app connects to Shopify through authentication and APIs to read/write store data.

So in your case:

  • Checkout extension only → deploy to Shopify and use it there

  • Other custom app features → need external hosting

  • Localhost is only for development/testing

Very compact deployment flow:

  1. Create/register the custom app in your Shopify Partner account

  2. Connect the app to the target store

  3. Set the app URL / redirect URL to your hosted server

  4. Deploy the backend/app code to cloud hosting

  5. Install the app on the store

  6. If using checkout extensions, deploy the extension to the Plus store from Shopify CLI

So basically, Shopify hosts the extension part, but your main custom app backend usually has to be hosted outside Shopify.