Serverless-side rendering with Vue.js and Nuxt.js

This project demonstrates how to use Nuxt.js to create a server-side rendered Vue.js app on AWS Lambda and AWS API Gateway.

Use-cases

Develop single-page apps without worrying about SEO optimization.

Benefits

SEO boost server-side rendering provides
Speed of a Single Page Application
Cheap hosting in a serverless environment on AWS Lambda
Easy deployment with the Serverless Framework
Can easily integrate with your own API or 3rd party APIs such as headless CMS, e-commerce or serverless architecture.

How it works

Well, first thing's first. We want a super fast Single Page Application. But, this usually comes with a cost. Lousy SEO capabilities. That won't do, meaning we also want the app to have server-side rendering. Okay, sounds simple. We'll grab Nuxt.js, which is a framework for creating universal Vue.js applications, and configure it to server-side render our pages.

To accomplish this we need to spin up a simple Express server and configure the Nuxt renderer to serve files through Express. It is way simpler than it sounds.

Setup

Install dependencies:
```
$ npm install
```
Create public wildcard certificate for your domain (AWS ACM)

Deploy

Deploy service without custom domain:

$ npm run deploy

Output:

> aws-node-vue-nuxt-ssr@1.0.0 deploy /home/raha/code/serverless/examples/aws-node-vue-nuxt-ssr
> npm run build && sls deploy


> aws-node-vue-nuxt-ssr@1.0.0 build /home/raha/code/serverless/examples/aws-node-vue-nuxt-ssr
> nuxt build

Hash: 969f557230f1916aaab2
Version: webpack 4.31.0
Time: 5531ms
Built at: 05/14/2019 12:22:28 AM
                        Asset       Size  Chunks             Chunk Names
../server/client.manifest.json   6.81 KiB          [emitted]
    1aeb026dc2ca77c8b429.js  952 bytes       3  [emitted]  pages/dogs/index
    775caefedab77dd6e1a6.js    147 KiB       1  [emitted]  commons.app
    92fcd17f0b85f40f90ad.js   1.15 KiB       2  [emitted]  pages/dogs/_breed
    9f5aaac1c101c273e65f.js  845 bytes       4  [emitted]  pages/index
                    LICENSES  464 bytes          [emitted]
    cf8b2abbbaec4a0c7b76.js   2.27 KiB       5  [emitted]  runtime
    fa6324eac05d1b7d36b0.js   42.3 KiB       0  [emitted]  app
+ 2 hidden assets
Entrypoint app = cf8b2abbbaec4a0c7b76.js 775caefedab77dd6e1a6.js fa6324eac05d1b7d36b0.js

Hash: ac61088f50920f2fc1a4
Version: webpack 4.31.0
Time: 1266ms
Built at: 05/14/2019 12:22:30 AM
                Asset       Size  Chunks             Chunk Names
92cd2f7d0e5f9c484439.js  641 bytes       2  [emitted]  pages/dogs/index
bbeb65244f57ade7cfbe.js  828 bytes       1  [emitted]  pages/dogs/_breed
e3465bc88d2bf9e1b91d.js  536 bytes       3  [emitted]  pages/index
            server.js   25.1 KiB       0  [emitted]  app
server.manifest.json  483 bytes          [emitted]
+ 4 hidden assets
Entrypoint app = server.js server.js.map
Done in 9.03s

Serverless: Packaging service...
Serverless: Excluding development dependencies...
Serverless: Creating Stack...
Serverless: Checking Stack create progress...
.....
Serverless: Stack create finished...
Serverless: Uploading CloudFormation file to S3...
Serverless: Uploading artifacts...
Serverless: Uploading service .zip file to S3 (42.47 MB)...
Serverless: Validating template...
Serverless: Updating Stack...
Serverless: Checking Stack update progress...
.................................
Serverless: Stack update finished...
Service Information
service: serverless-side-rendering-vue-nuxt
stage: dev
region: us-east-1
stack: serverless-side-rendering-vue-nuxt-dev
api keys:
    None
endpoints:
    ANY - https://<api_id>.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/dev
    ANY - https://<api_id>.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/dev/{proxy+}
functions:
    nuxt: serverless-side-rendering-vue-nuxt-dev-nuxt

Once deployed you'll have your app running on a default API Gateway URI.

Create domain:

Uncomment domain settings in serverless.yaml.

[...]
plugins:
  - serverless-apigw-binary
  - serverless-domain-manager # uncomment the plugin
  - serverless-offline
[...]
custom:
  secrets: ${file(secrets.json)}
  apigwBinary:
    types:
      - '*/*'
  customDomain: # uncomment the whole customDomain section
    domainName: ${self:custom.secrets.DOMAIN}
    basePath: ''
    stage: ${self:custom.secrets.NODE_ENV}
    createRoute53Record: true

Run the create domain command:

$ sls create_domain

This will take a few minutes, go grab a coffee in the meantime. 😄

Re-deploy the service with the domain settings:

$ npm run deploy

Output:

[...same as above but also with the domain info]
Serverless Domain Manager Summary
Domain Name
    vuessr.yourdomain.com
Distribution Domain Name
    <cdn_id>.cloudfront.net

Usage

Navigate to vuessr-yourdomain.com or whichever domain you picked. You'll see the Vue.js SPA running.

I've written a detailed tutorial about the process. You can check it out here. (NOTE: Some parts are outdated and are for nuxt@1. Please refer to this example for using with nuxt@2)