Distribute Node.js application as single cross-platform executable

1
votes

I have a web app where the front and back ends are both written in Node. The backend needs to run on (recent) Windows, OSX, and Linux. The front end, obviously, will run in a (modern) web browser, with pages served out from the backend.

For ease of deployment/installation, I would like to provide an executable file that installs "the right way" for each of those platforms. In browsing StackOverflow, I found a couple candidates:

1) I see that Electron helps make native apps that run cross platform, but I haven't seen anything that describes how Electron could listen on (say) port 80 and serve out the desired set of pages.

Is using Electron a rational strategy? Can anyone give me pointers to projects that work like this?

2) I also see that pkg (https://github.com/zeit/pkg) claims to produce cross-platform binaries. Can anyone give their experience with it?

3) Any other alternatives?

Free/Open-source somewat preferred, but commercial packages are a possibility. Many thanks!

1
node.jslinuxwindowsmacosweb-applications
I believe Electron is aimed exactly at this use case. - saille

1 Answers

1
votes

@saille seems to have nailed it. Searches for "electron and express" on https://discuss.atom.io/ yield multiple articles for the combination.

pkg will also support an Express backend server.

So I do not plan to search for alternatives, but will investigate whether Electron or pkg work best for me.