How to Host an Expo App on Orbiter

If you’re building mobile apps then there’s a chance you’ve heard of React Native before. It’s becoming a popular way to build cross platform apps, where a single codebase can be deployed to iOS, Android, and even the Web. Expo has made building on React Native so much simpler than ever before, with great documentation, features, and plugins to satisfy pretty much anyone who wants to build a mobile app. While mobile apps are generally installed through app stores, you still need a place to host it if you’re also deploying to the web. In this post we’ll show you how easy it is to do just that with Orbiter!

Getting Started

In order to follow this tutorial you’ll need the following:

• Node.js V.20 or higher
• A text editor like VSCode, Cursor, or Zed
• A free Orbiter account

Once you have all of that, our project begins with just one command:

npx create-expo-app@latest expo-app

Once it’s finished installing run the commands below to navigate to the project and start up the dev server

cd expo-app
npm run web

You should now see the app in your browser!

Hosting

To make sure your app is setup for a static build output for the web, open up the app.json file and locate the web object.

"web": {
  "bundler": "metro",
  "output": "static",
  "favicon": "./assets/images/favicon.png"
},

These will generally already be set automatically, but if not make sure the bundler is set to metro and the output is set to static.

After confirming your app.json is correct you can run the command below to build the project:

npx expo export --platform web

This will create a dist folder which we’ll upload to Orbiter!

Log into your Orbiter account and click the Upload Site button. Drag your dist folder into the modal or click the Select Folder button then choose the dist folder we built earlier. Give your site a subdomain, and click Create.

That’s it! You should see the site listed on the grid where you can visit it. If you prefer a CLI method, we got you covered there too. It’s just three commands:

npm i -g orbiter-cli

orbiter login -p google # or github

orbiter create -d expo-app ./dist

Wrapping Up

Expo makes it dead simple to spin up a mobile app that’s ready to launch on multiple platforms, and Orbiter is here it to make the web just as simple. Be sure to try out today for free and sign up now!