Running multiple Node (Express) apps on same port

Question

I have multiple Node applications (build on Express framework).

Now I have placed them like this -

/var/www/app1
/var/www/app2
/var/www/app3

Now I want to run these 3 apps on the same port (say 8080). Is that possible ?

One thing to note is that, Each app has common routes like these -

app.get('/', func...);
app.get('/about', func...);
app.post('/foo', func...);
app.post('/bar', func...);

Basically I want to do it like you can do with Apache/PHP setup.

So with a LAMP stack when you have -

/var/www/app1
/var/www/app2
/var/www/app3

You can easily access them as different apps from -

localhost/app1
localhost/app2
localhost/app3

possible duplicate of [How to mount express.js sub-apps?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8514106/how-to-mount-express-js-sub-apps) — lanzz, Jun 27 '12 at 12:22

score 66 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 14 '16 at 17:41

66

You can use app.use():

app
  .use('/app1', require('./app1/index').app)
  .use('/app2', require('./app2/index').app)
  .listen(8080);

edited Mar 14 '16 at 17:41

Gajus

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answered Jun 27 '12 at 14:44

user1437328

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Will this possible if my Node apps were made using Restify? *Ask me if this question isn't specific or clear enough.* – junerockwell Mar 21 '16 at 18:02
No, `app.use()` is specific to `express` and will not support any HTTP server that does not follow the express plugin calling pattern. – Rob Raisch Mar 21 '16 at 19:36
3

I'm guessing that if one app crashes, the rest will too. – Telmo Trooper Feb 27 '18 at 20:04
1

What is the best way to do it without third-party framework like Express.js? – baptx Nov 17 '20 at 16:43

gherkins · Answer 2 · 2012-06-27T14:05:59.303

36

You could run them as seperate apps listening to different ports and then have a proxy (like https://github.com/nodejitsu/node-http-proxy/ ) serving everything on 8080 depending on the requested URL.

like:

var options = {
  router: {
    'foo.com/baz': '127.0.0.1:8001',
    'foo.com/buz': '127.0.0.1:8002',
    'bar.com/buz': '127.0.0.1:8003'
  }
};

Works like charm for me ( http://nerdpress.org/2012/04/20/hosting-multiple-express-node-js-apps-on-port-80/). I wasn't so keen on having them mounted as sub-apps, as suggested in the comments because i wanted them to run independently...

edited Jun 27 '12 at 14:05

answered Jun 27 '12 at 12:30

gherkins

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First of all, i don't want to setup multiple vhosts. i want it like vhost/app1 , vhost/app2 , vhost/app3. secondly, i tried the second method from the blog post you linked to, but it's not really working for me and i don't know whether it'll fit my use case or not. any idea ? oh, and also not looking to use a reverse proxy at this point... – user1437328 Jun 27 '12 at 13:53
Of course you can run your subapps wrapped in one app and handle the routing internally. I personally just don't like my apps depend on each other that much, when it comes to crashes. Thats why i prefer running them on different ports. – gherkins Jun 27 '12 at 14:03
you don't have to set up multiple vhost to achieve this with node-http-proxy , i'll update the answer with an example – gherkins Jun 27 '12 at 14:04
could you clarify how to use the "options" var? – A.D Jun 29 '16 at 19:50
apparently the `router` in options was removed a while ago. https://blog.nodejitsu.com/node-http-proxy-1dot0/ – galki Oct 09 '17 at 13:26

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 16 '20 at 17:18

You can create one main app(say app) parallel to you apps, and have it initializing the secondary apps (in your case app1, app2, app3) using

app.use('<the_context_you_need>', require('./app1/yourApp.js')

All your apps (app1, app2, app3) need to create app and export it by using

var app = module.exports = express();

You need not create instance of server or call app.listen in all the subapps; all the sub-apps can be served via main app listen port.

Running multiple Node (Express) apps on same port

3 Answers3

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