Can I host a Node.js or Python app on shared hosting?

How it works

cPanel’s Setup Node.js App and Setup Python App tools (powered by CloudLinux) give every app its own environment:

1. Upload your code using Git over SSH or the File Manager.
2. Create the app in cPanel: choose the Node.js or Python version, the folder and the domain or subdomain.
3. Set the start file: app.js or server.js for Node.js; for Python, a WSGI entry point such as passenger_wsgi.py that imports your Flask or Django app.
4. Install dependencies with Run npm install / pip install -r requirements.txt (or over SSH).
5. Restart the app. It’s now live on your domain with free SSL.

The server starts and restarts the app for you, so you don’t need PM2, Gunicorn or any other process manager.

Databases and files

Anything with several users should use the MySQL/MariaDB databases that come with your plan. SQLite is fine for small, quiet apps. Uploaded files sit in your account storage, which is backed up every day.

Which plan?

npm, pip and Git all need SSH, which is included on every plan except Starter, so start on Standard ($35.07 a year) or above. There’s more on our Node.js and Python hosting page.

When a VPS makes more sense

• Background workers, queues or scheduled jobs that never stop (Celery, Bull).
• Your own process manager or start command, or several services that talk to each other.
• Docker containers, Redis or a database server you set up yourself.
• Heavy traffic or a lot of CPU work.

A VPS or Docker VPS gives you full root access for all of these.