Dockerizing a MERN Stack Application

Why Docker?

"It works on my machine" is a phrase of the past. Docker ensures that your application runs exactly the same way in every environment, from your local dev environment to production servers.

The Dockerfile

We need to create a Dockerfile for both our client (React) and server (Node/Express). Here's a sample for the backend:

FROM node:18-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .
EXPOSE 5000
CMD ["npm", "start"]

Orchestration with Docker Compose

Docker Compose allows us to run multi-container applications. We will define services for the mongo database, backend API, and client frontend.