Deploy, Scale, and Manage Phoenix Applications Seamlessly with Fly.io

Deploy, Scale, and Manage Phoenix Applications Seamlessly with Fly.io

Phoenix

Phoenix is a web development framework written in Elixir, designed for implementing APIs and web applications. With components comparable to other popular frameworks like Django and Ruby on Rails, Phoenix offers high developer productivity alongside impressive application performance. Unique features such as channels for real-time functionality and pre-compiled templates for increased speed further distinguish Phoenix from its counterparts.

Fly.io

Fly.io is an excellent platform for effortlessly deploying your applications.

Yes, you can deploy various applications written in Django, Laravel, Phoenix, and other frameworks in just a few steps.

Install Elixir

Please refer to our article Installing Elixir with ASDF for Elixir installation.

Once Elixir is installed, it gets shipped with Mix.

Install Phoenix

To install Phoenix, use the following command

mix archive.install hex phx_new #{version_number}

Install Flyctl

Flyctl is a command-line utility that lets you work with Fly.io, from creating your account to deploying your applications. It runs on your local device so you’ll want to install the version that’s appropriate for your operating system. The below shows different installation procedures for different operating systems

For Mac users

brew install flyctl

For Linux users

curl -L https://fly.io/install.sh | sh

For Windows users, use the power shell installation script

pwsh -Command "iwr https://fly.io/install.ps1 -useb | iex"

If you are using fly.io for the first time. Run the below to sign up

fly auth signup

This will take you to a page where you can sign up using your email address. Once completed, you can now sign in.

fly auth login

Phoenix provides the best of both worlds - high developer productivity and high application performance. It also has some interesting new twists like channels for implementing real-time features and pre-compiled templates for blazing speed.

If you are already familiar with Elixir, great! If not, there are several places to learn. The Elixir guides and the Elixir learning resources page are two great places to start.

Deploying a Phoenix application can be effortlessly accomplished in just a few simple steps. Before getting started, make sure that Elixir and Phoenix are installed on your computer. Once your project is finalized and ready for deployment, follow the guide below, using a new project created specifically for this tutorial.

Create a new Phoenix Project

mix phx.new fly_project

Deploying the Application

Next, we will move into the directory and deploy the app using "fly launch". Answer a few questions about your setup. Your app is deployed and the URL to visit it will be shown. You can also check it out by visiting your dashboard.

cd fly_project
Fly launch

You will receive a prompt on the URL to visit your app or you can check your dashboard to see the deployed app with all the details.

In conclusion, deploying Phoenix applications on Fly.io is a seamless and efficient process that combines the productivity and performance benefits of the Phoenix framework with the ease of use and scalability of Fly.io. By following the steps outlined in this article, developers can quickly bring their Phoenix applications to life and harness the full potential of both technologies.