These integration guides are not official documentation and the Strapi Support Team will not provide assistance with them.
What Is AWS?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a global cloud platform with 200+ services for building and scaling everything from simple sites to enterprise infrastructure.
For Strapi, common AWS tools include:
- EC2 for hosting Strapi on virtual machines
- S3 for storing uploaded media
- RDS for managed databases
- VPC and Route 53 for networking and DNS
Developers choose AWS for its flexibility, scale, and pay-as-you-go pricing. It’s the market leader in cloud computing and supports everything from web apps to ML workloads.
That said, Strapi Cloud offers a fully managed alternative—with built-in hosting, database, and S3-backed media storage. It’s ideal if you want to focus on building your app, not managing cloud infrastructure.
Why Use Strapi with AWS?
Pairing Strapi with AWS gives you a scalable, flexible content stack that handles real-world demands, from traffic spikes to global delivery.
When your Strapi app needs to scale, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling keeps performance steady by automatically adjusting server capacity. AWS's global infrastructure and CloudFront CDN ensure your content loads quickly, no matter where your users are.
Strapi also integrates easily with key AWS services. Store media in S3, manage your database with RDS, and extend functionality using Lambda. While setup may require some configuration, Strapi’s plugin ecosystem and support for custom APIs give you the flexibility to tailor everything to your needs.
Security is another strong match. Combine Strapi’s role-based access control with AWS tools like IAM, VPCs, and WAF to protect your stack from end to end.
For teams that want to simplify deployment and infrastructure management, recent updates to Strapi Cloud offer a managed experience that still plays nicely with AWS services behind the scenes.
Keep in touch with the latest Strapi and AWS updates
How to Integrate AWS with Strapi
By combining services like EC2, RDS, and S3, you can create a scalable, secure, production-grade Strapi deployment. If you'd rather skip provisioning and infrastructure altogether, Strapi Cloud provides an AWS-backed environment with minimal configuration.
1. Set Up Your Strapi Project
Before deploying, make sure you’ve created a Strapi app locally. Follow the deployment configuration guide to prepare your environment variables and production settings.
2. Launch an EC2 Instance
Use Amazon EC2 to host your Strapi backend.
- Choose a Linux AMI (e.g., Ubuntu)
- Set up security groups to allow HTTP/HTTPS and SSH
- Install Node.js, npm/yarn, and your database client
- Clone your Strapi project and run:
yarn build
yarn start
For simpler setup and managed scaling, Strapi Cloud handles this for you out of the box.
3. Connect to Amazon RDS
Instead of hosting your database on the EC2 instance, use Amazon RDS for a managed database.
- Create a PostgreSQL or MySQL instance
- Update your
.env
file:
1DATABASE_CLIENT=postgres
2DATABASE_HOST=your-db-host.rds.amazonaws.com
3DATABASE_PORT=5432
4DATABASE_NAME=strapi
5DATABASE_USERNAME=youruser
6DATABASE_PASSWORD=yourpassword
- Make sure your EC2 instance can access the RDS instance (VPC + security groups)
4. Configure S3 for Media Storage
Strapi uses a pluggable upload system. To use Amazon S3 as your media backend:
Install the AWS S3 provider:
yarn add @strapi/provider-upload-aws-s3
Update your config/plugins.js
file:
1module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
2 // ...
3 upload: {
4 config: {
5 provider: 'aws-s3',
6 providerOptions: {
7 baseUrl: env('CDN_URL'),
8 rootPath: env('CDN_ROOT_PATH'),
9 s3Options: {
10 credentials: {
11 accessKeyId: env('AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'),
12 secretAccessKey: env('AWS_ACCESS_SECRET'),
13 },
14 region: env('AWS_REGION'),
15 params: {
16 ACL: env('AWS_ACL', 'public-read'),
17 signedUrlExpires: env('AWS_SIGNED_URL_EXPIRES', 15 * 60),
18 Bucket: env('AWS_BUCKET'),
19 },
20 },
21 },
22 actionOptions: {
23 upload: {},
24 uploadStream: {},
25 delete: {},
26 },
27 },
28 },
29 // ...
30});
Add these to your .env
file:
1AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-access-key
2AWS_ACCESS_SECRET=your-secret-key
3AWS_REGION=your-region
4AWS_BUCKET=your-bucket-name
5AWS_SIGNED_URL_EXPIRES=your-aws-signed-url
6AWS_ACL=your-aws-acl
This is especially useful for large projects or global teams. For those who prefer a managed experience, Strapi Cloud uses S3 under the hood—no manual setup required.
By combining these services, you can create a scalable, secure, production-grade Strapi deployment. And if you'd rather skip provisioning and infrastructure altogether, Strapi Cloud provides an AWS-backed environment with minimal configuration.
Keep in touch with the latest Strapi and AWS updates
Project Example: Integrate AWS With Strapi (with GitHub Project Repo)
Let’s get practical. Here’s a real-world example of deploying Strapi with AWS services to create a production-ready blog platform. This setup demonstrates how to combine key AWS tools to run Strapi at scale. Want to explore the code? You’ll find everything you need in this GitHub repository. If you want similar benefits without the infrastructure setup, Strapi Cloud offers a managed experience with AWS-backed scalability.
Project Overview
This demo project is a blog platform that supports multi-author publishing using:
- EC2 to run the Strapi backend
- RDS (PostgreSQL) for the production database
- S3 for image and file storage
- CloudFront to deliver content globally
Strapi handles content management, while AWS takes care of performance, scaling, and distribution.
Key Features
- Multi-user authentication and authorization
- Article creation and publishing workflows
- Media upload and management via S3
- Global content delivery with CloudFront CDN
Deployment Architecture
This setup follows AWS well-architected best practices for performance, reliability, and security:
- Strapi runs on EC2 in a private subnet
- The RDS database is isolated in a separate private subnet
- An Application Load Balancer (ALB) in a public subnet routes incoming traffic
- Media files are stored in S3 and distributed through CloudFront
If you want similar benefits without the infrastructure setup, Strapi Cloud offers a managed experience with AWS-backed scalability.
Deployment Steps to Integrate AWS With Strapi
1. Clone the deployment repository
git clone https://github.com/61FINTECH/deploy-strapi-on-aws.git
cd deploy-strapi-on-aws
2. Provision AWS infrastructure using CloudFormation
aws cloudformation create-stack --stack-name strapi-blog --template-body file://cloudformation-template.yaml --capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM
3. SSH into the EC2 instance and clone the Strapi app
git clone https://github.com/61FINTECH/strapi-blog-app.git
cd strapi-blog-app
npm install
4. Configure environment variables for your database and S3 credentials
5. Build and start the Strapi application
npm run build
npm run start
CI/CD Pipeline
The project includes a CI/CD workflow using AWS CodePipeline. It handles:
- Pulling the latest code from GitHub
- Building the Strapi project
- Running automated tests
- Deploying to Elastic Beanstalk
Refer to cicd-setup.md
in the repo for detailed instructions.
Scaling Considerations
To support high-traffic production environments, this project includes:
- Auto Scaling Groups for EC2 to adjust capacity on demand
- Read replicas for RDS to improve database read performance
- CloudFront caching to reduce latency and offload server load
Security Best Practices
The project follows several best practices to secure your stack:
- IAM roles are scoped to least privilege
- Security groups restrict access to specific services and ports
- TLS encryption protects API traffic (if enabled via ALB config)
- AWS Secrets Manager stores environment variables and secrets securely
Monitoring and Logging
Observability is handled through Amazon CloudWatch:
- Alarms for CPU, memory, and disk usage
- Application metrics like response time and error rate
- Centralized logging from EC2, RDS, and the Node.js process
Strapi Open Office Hours
If you have any questions about Strapi 5 or just would like to stop by and say hi, you can join us at Strapi's Discord Open Office Hours Monday through Friday at 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm CST.
In other note, Strapi is now live on AWS Marketplace. Check it out here.
For more details, visit the Strapi documentation and AWS documentation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you host Strapi on AWS?
Yes, you can host Strapi on AWS using services like EC2, ECS, or AWS Elastic Beanstalk. However, this approach requires manual setup, server management, and ongoing maintenance. For most teams, Strapi Cloud offers a faster, fully managed solution that lets you focus on building content and APIs without worrying about infrastructure. It’s the easiest way to get started with Strapi, with built-in scaling, security, and continuous updates handled for you.What are the challenges or limitations when integrating Strapi with AWS services?
Strapi works well on AWS, but deploying and managing it can involve some complexity. Setting up services like EC2, RDS, and S3 often requires custom configuration and a good understanding of AWS infrastructure, including IAM, networking, and CI/CD pipelines. Strapi also doesn't offer built-in multi-tenancy, so supporting multiple tenants may require a custom solution or separate instances. And while integrations with AWS tools like Lambda or DynamoDB are possible, they often involve custom plugins or middleware. To simplify this process, Strapi Cloud offers a fully managed, production-ready environment—built and optimized by the Strapi team, so you can skip the infrastructure work and focus on building your app.How do you monitor Strapi on AWS?
For Strapi deployments on AWS, CloudWatch is a strong choice for both monitoring and logging. It integrates well with EC2, container services, and other AWS infrastructure, letting you track metrics like CPU usage, memory, and error rates, and set up alarms for performance thresholds or anomalies.At the application level, Strapi supports custom logging middleware, which can output structured logs (e.g. JSON) for easier parsing in CloudWatch or other tools. This makes it easier to track requests, errors, and performance data specific to your Strapi app. You can also use Strapi webhooks to monitor content changes in real time. These events (create, update, delete) can be sent to CloudWatch, Lambda, or third-party services to support auditing, automation, or alerts. Together, these tools provide a full picture of both infrastructure health and app activity.How do I set up automatic backups for Strapi on AWS?
To set up automatic backups for Strapi on AWS, you can use AWS RDS automated backup functionality if you're using RDS for your Strapi database. In addition, you can schedule regular backups for media assets stored on AWS S3 using AWS Lambda functions or external tools like AWS Backup.You can also configure backup solutions for the server file system if you're hosting Strapi on EC2, using tools like cron jobs combined with AWS CLI or scripts for scheduled backups. To ensure consistent recovery, always store backups in different availability zones or regions for redundancy.
What are the cost considerations when hosting Strapi on AWS?
When hosting Strapi on AWS, the cost will depend on several factors, including the size of your EC2 instances, the amount of storage required for your database and media assets, and the level of traffic your application receives.For cost-effective solutions, you can use AWS Free Tier for small-scale Strapi applications or development environments. However, for production environments with significant traffic, you may need to use larger EC2 instances or opt for managed services like AWS RDS and S3, which come with additional costs based on usage.
Using AWS Auto Scaling for EC2 instances, setting up reserved instances, or choosing serverless options like AWS Lambda for some API routes may help lower costs in the long term.