Deploy Ludo Game — Complete Step-by-Step Deployment Guide 2026

Deployment Platform Comparison

Choosing the right deployment platform depends on your game's scale, team experience, budget, and whether you need full server control. Here is a detailed comparison of the four main options for hosting a Ludo game:

Railway

Best for: Quick startups & indie developers

Pros: Git-linked deploys, built-in PostgreSQL and Redis add-ons, automatic HTTPS, zero-config for most Node.js apps. Free tier with $5/month credit. Deploys in under 2 minutes from GitHub.

Cons: Limited to 500 hours/month on free tier, no built-in WebSocket persistence (sessions reset on deploy), can be expensive at scale ($20+/month for production).

Price: $5/month for hobby, $20/month for production starter.

WebSocket support: Native with Socket.IO — works out of the box with sticky sessions.

Render

Best for: Teams needing managed services

Pros: PostgreSQL, Redis, and cron jobs as managed add-ons. Blue-green deployments. Good free tier with sleep after 15 minutes. Auto-scaling on paid plans.

Cons: Slower cold starts than Railway, WebSocket support requires Web Services (not Web Backend) plan for proper WebSocket handling.

Price: Free for web services, $7/month for PostgreSQL, $20/month for Redis.

WebSocket support: Supported on Web Services plan.

AWS (EC2 / ECS / Lambda)

Best for: Large-scale production with compliance needs

Pros: Unlimited scale, VPC networking, RDS for managed databases, CloudFront CDN, Cognito for authentication, CloudWatch for monitoring. The industry standard for enterprise-grade deployments.

Cons: Steep learning curve, complex IAM permissions, bill shock is common for beginners, configuration requires significant DevOps knowledge.

Price: EC2 t3.micro ($10/month), RDS t3.micro ($15/month), CloudFront ($0.02/GB). Expect $30–100/month for a production Ludo game.

WebSocket support: API Gateway WebSockets + Lambda or ALB with sticky sessions.

VPS (DigitalOcean / Linode)

Best for: Full control at low cost

Pros: Full root access, one-click Docker installation, predictable pricing, easy scaling by upgrading droplet. Everything runs on your own hardware.

Cons: You manage security updates, SSL renewals, backups, and server maintenance. No built-in database — you set up PostgreSQL and Redis yourself.

Price: $6/month (DigitalOcean Basic), $12/month for production, $48/month for serious workloads.

WebSocket support: Full control — configure Nginx with sticky sessions or use Redis pub/sub across multiple instances.

Recommendation: For most Ludo game developers, start with Railway for the backend and a static host (Vercel or Netlify) for the frontend. Migrate to a VPS or AWS when you need multi-instance scaling with Redis pub/sub. See the scaling architecture guide for multi-server design patterns.

Step 1 — Railway Deployment (Recommended)

Railway offers the fastest path from GitHub to production for a Ludo game. It handles build tools, environment variables, databases, and SSL certificates automatically. Follow these steps to get your Ludo game live in under 15 minutes.

1.1 — Prepare Your Repository

Your repository needs a package.json with the correct build and start scripts. Railway auto-detects Node.js and runs npm build for the build phase and npm start for the runtime.

{
  "name": "ludo-game-server",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "node server.js",
    "build": "tsc && node scripts/migrate.js",
    "start": "node dist/server.js",
    "test": "jest"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.18.2",
    "socket.io": "^4.7.2",
    "pg": "^8.11.3",
    "redis": "^4.6.10",
    "jsonwebtoken": "^9.0.2",
    "bcrypt": "^5.1.1",
    "cors": "^2.8.5",
    "dotenv": "^16.3.1"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "typescript": "^5.3.3",
    "@types/node": "^20.10.6",
    "jest": "^29.7.0"
  },
  "engines": { "node": ">=18.0.0" }
}

1.2 — Connect to Railway

Navigate to railway.app, sign up with your GitHub account, and click New Project → Connect GitHub Repository. Select your Ludo game repository.

1.3 — Add Environment Variables

On the Railway dashboard, go to your project → Variables tab. Add these environment variables. Railway will encrypt them at rest and inject them into your containers at runtime.

# Required
NODE_ENV=production
PORT=3000

# Database (Railway will auto-fill this if you add a PostgreSQL plugin)
DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@host:5432/ludo_db

# Cache & Sessions
REDIS_URL=redis://user:password@host:6379

# Authentication
JWT_SECRET=generate-with: openssl rand -hex 32
JWT_EXPIRES_IN=7d

# CORS — list all allowed origins
CORS_ORIGIN=https://yourludogame.com,https://www.yourludogame.com

# API Keys
LUDOKING_API_KEY=your_ludokingapi_key_here

# Game Configuration
MAX_PLAYERS_PER_ROOM=4
GAME_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=300
ROOM_CODE_LENGTH=6

# Logging
LOG_LEVEL=info

1.4 — Add Database Plugins

In the Railway project view, click + New → Database → PostgreSQL. Railway provisions a managed PostgreSQL instance and automatically populates the DATABASE_URL environment variable. Similarly, add a Redis plugin for session management and Socket.IO adapter:

import { createClient } from 'redis';
import { Server } from 'socket.io';
import { createAdapter } from '@socket.io/redis-adapter';
import express from 'express';

const app = express();
const httpServer = app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000);

const io = new Server(httpServer, {
  cors: { origin: process.env.CORS_ORIGIN.split(','), methods: ['GET', 'POST'] }
});

// Redis adapter enables Socket.IO to work across multiple instances
const pubClient = createClient({ url: process.env.REDIS_URL });
const subClient = pubClient.duplicate();
await Promise.all([pubClient.connect(), subClient.connect()]);
io.adapter(createAdapter(pubClient, subClient));
console.log('Socket.IO Redis adapter connected');

1.5 — Deploy

Click Deploy on Railway. The platform clones your repository, runs npm install, executes the build script, and starts your server. Railway provides a default subdomain (yourproject.railway.app) with automatic HTTPS. You can add a custom domain in Project Settings → Domains.

Step 2 — VPS Deployment (Full Control)

If you prefer full control over your infrastructure, deploy to a VPS. This section covers setting up an Ubuntu 22.04 server with PM2, Nginx, and Let's Encrypt SSL. This approach gives you complete control and typically costs $6–20/month.

2.1 — Initial Server Setup

# SSH into your server
ssh root@your-server-ip

# Update system packages
apt update && apt upgrade -y

# Install essential packages
apt install -y curl wget git nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx ufw

# Install Node.js 20.x
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
apt install -y nodejs
node --version  # v20.x.x

# Install PM2 for process management
npm install -g pm2
pm2 install pm2-logrotate  # Automatic log rotation

# Create deployment user
adduser ludo
usermod -aG sudo ludo
su - ludo

# Generate SSH key for GitHub (optional, for CI/CD)
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "ludo-deploy@your-server"
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub  # Add this to GitHub Deploy Keys

2.2 — Clone and Configure

# As the ludo user
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ludo-game-server.git
cd ludo-game-server

# Install dependencies
npm ci

# Build
npm run build

# Create .env from template
cat > .env << 'EOF'
NODE_ENV=production
PORT=3000
DATABASE_URL=postgres://ludo_user:secure_password@localhost:5432/ludo_db
REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379
JWT_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
CORS_ORIGIN=https://yourludogame.com
EOF

# Start with PM2
pm2 start dist/server.js --name ludo-server --env production
pm2 save
pm2 startup  # Generates systemd service — copy the command output and run it

Step 3 — Nginx Reverse Proxy with WebSocket Support

Nginx sits in front of your Node.js server, handling SSL termination, static file serving, and WebSocket proxying. The critical configuration is the WebSocket upgrade headers — without them, Socket.IO connections will fail after the initial HTTP handshake.

upstream ludo_backend {
    server 127.0.0.1:3000;
    keepalive 64;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourludogame.com www.yourludogame.com;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;  # Redirect HTTP to HTTPS
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name yourludogame.com www.yourludogame.com;

    # SSL Configuration
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourludogame.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourludogame.com/privkey.pem;
    ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourludogame.com/chain.pem;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers off;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
    ssl_session_timeout 1d;

    # Security Headers
    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN" always;
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff" always;
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block" always;
    add_header Referrer-Policy "strict-origin-when-cross-origin" always;
    add_header Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self'; script-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'; connect-src 'self' wss://yourludogame.com; img-src 'self' data:;" always;

    # Serve static frontend files
    root /var/www/ludo-game/build;
    index index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
        expires 1y;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
    }

    # Socket.IO WebSocket proxy — critical for multiplayer
    location /socket.io/ {
        proxy_pass http://ludo_backend;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
        proxy_read_timeout 86400;     # 24 hours — long-running WebSocket connections
        proxy_send_timeout 86400;
    }

    # REST API proxy
    location /api/ {
        proxy_pass http://ludo_backend;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        rate_limit zone=api_limit burst=20 nodelay;
    }

    # Rate limiting zones
    limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=api_limit:10m rate=10r/s;

    # Health check endpoint
    location /health {
        proxy_pass http://ludo_backend;
        access_log off;
    }
}

Enable the site and test the configuration:

# Enable the site
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/ludo-game /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

# Test configuration
sudo nginx -t

# Reload Nginx
sudo systemctl reload nginx

# Firewall setup
sudo ufw default deny incoming
sudo ufw default allow outgoing
sudo ufw allow ssh
sudo ufw allow http
sudo ufw allow https
sudo ufw enable

Step 4 — SSL Certificate with Let's Encrypt

Let's Encrypt provides free, auto-renewing SSL certificates. The certbot tool handles certificate issuance and Nginx configuration automatically.

# Install certbot if not already installed
sudo apt install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx

# Obtain and install SSL certificate
sudo certbot --nginx -d yourludogame.com -d www.yourludogame.com

# Certbot will ask for an email and agreement — it auto-configures Nginx
# Choose option 2 (redirect HTTP to HTTPS)

# Verify automatic renewal is enabled
sudo systemctl status certbot.timer
sudo certbot renew --dry-run  # Test renewal process

# Test SSL quality
curl -s https://yourludogame.com/health  # Should return JSON over HTTPS

Step 5 — CI/CD Pipeline with GitHub Actions

A GitHub Actions workflow automates your entire deployment pipeline. Every push to the main branch triggers the pipeline: install dependencies, run tests, build the production bundle, and deploy to your server via SSH. This eliminates manual deployment steps and ensures consistent, reproducible releases.

5.1 — Create GitHub Secrets

Before creating the workflow, add the following secrets to your GitHub repository: Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions.

SERVER_HOST        # Your server IP address (e.g., 143.198.92.15)
SERVER_USER        # Deployment user (e.g., ludo)
SERVER_SSH_KEY     # Private SSH key for the deployment user
DATABASE_URL       # Production database connection string
REDIS_URL          # Production Redis URL
JWT_SECRET         # Production JWT signing secret
CORS_ORIGIN        # Production allowed origins

5.2 — Full GitHub Actions Workflow

# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
name: Deploy Ludo Game to Production

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

env:
  NODE_VERSION: '20'
  DEPLOY_PATH: '/home/ludo/ludo-game-server'

jobs:
  # Job 1: Run tests on every push
  test:
    name: Test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: 'npm'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Run linter
        run: npm run lint

      - name: Run tests
        run: npm test -- --coverage
        env:
          NODE_ENV: test
          DATABASE_URL: postgres://test:test@localhost:5432/ludo_test
          REDIS_URL: redis://localhost:6379

      - name: Upload coverage report
        uses: codecov/codecov-action@v3
        with:
          file: ./coverage/lcov.info
          fail_ci_if_error: true

  # Job 2: Build production bundle — runs in parallel with test
  build:
    name: Build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: 'npm'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Build production bundle
        run: npm run build
        env:
          NODE_ENV: production

      - name: Upload build artifacts
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/
          retention-days: 1

  # Job 3: Deploy to production — only on push to main, after test passes
  deploy:
    name: Deploy to Server
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: [test, build]
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' && github.event_name == 'push'
    environment: production

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Download build artifacts
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/

      - name: Setup SSH key
        env:
          SSH_KEY: ${{ secrets.SERVER_SSH_KEY }}
        run: |
          mkdir -p ~/.ssh
          echo "$SSH_KEY" > ~/.ssh/deploy_key
          chmod 600 ~/.ssh/deploy_key
          ssh-keyscan -H ${{ secrets.SERVER_HOST }} >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts

      - name: Stop previous deployment gracefully
        uses: appleboy/ssh-action@v1.0.0
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SERVER_HOST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.SERVER_USER }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SERVER_SSH_KEY }}
          script: |
            cd ${{ env.DEPLOY_PATH }}
            pm2 stop ludo-server || true
            pm2 delete ludo-server || true

      - name: Sync code to server
        uses: rsync-deploy/rsync-deploy@v2.0
        with:
          server: ${{ secrets.SERVER_HOST }}
          port: 22
          username: ${{ secrets.SERVER_USER }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SERVER_SSH_KEY }}
          local_path: ./
          remote_path: ${{ env.DEPLOY_PATH }}

      - name: Install production dependencies on server
        uses: appleboy/ssh-action@v1.0.0
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SERVER_HOST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.SERVER_USER }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SERVER_SSH_KEY }}
          envs: DATABASE_URL,REDIS_URL,JWT_SECRET,CORS_ORIGIN,NODE_ENV
          script: |
            cd ${{ env.DEPLOY_PATH }}
            npm ci --production --omit=dev
            npm run build  # Rebuild to ensure fresh build on server

      - name: Start application with PM2
        uses: appleboy/ssh-action@v1.0.0
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SERVER_HOST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.SERVER_USER }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SERVER_SSH_KEY }}
          envs: DATABASE_URL,REDIS_URL,JWT_SECRET,CORS_ORIGIN,NODE_ENV
          script: |
            cd ${{ env.DEPLOY_PATH }}
            pm2 start dist/server.js \
              --name ludo-server \
              --env production \
              --wait-ready \
              --listen-timeout 10000
            pm2 save
            pm2 logs ludo-server --lines 20 --nostream

      - name: Health check after deployment
        run: |
          sleep 5
          curl -sf https://yourludogame.com/health || exit 1
          curl -sf https://yourludogame.com/api/health || exit 1

      - name: Notify deployment success
        if: success()
        run: echo "Deployment successful at $(date)"

      - name: Notify deployment failure
        if: failure()
        run: |
          echo "Deployment failed at $(date)"
          echo "Check PM2 logs: pm2 logs ludo-server --lines 50"

Step 6 — Database Provisioning

Your Ludo game needs a database for player accounts, game history, leaderboards, and room state persistence. PostgreSQL is the standard choice — it handles JSON data (useful for game state), supports transactions (important for concurrent move processing), and scales well for multiplayer games.

-- players table
CREATE TABLE players (
  id UUID PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT gen_random_uuid(),
  username VARCHAR(50) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
  email VARCHAR(255) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
  password_hash VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT NOW(),
  last_login TIMESTAMP,
  games_played INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
  games_won INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
  rating INTEGER DEFAULT 1000
);

-- game_rooms table
CREATE TABLE game_rooms (
  id UUID PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT gen_random_uuid(),
  room_code VARCHAR(8) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
  host_player_id UUID REFERENCES players(id),
  status VARCHAR(20) DEFAULT 'waiting',
  current_player INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
  game_state JSONB,
  winner_id UUID REFERENCES players(id),
  created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT NOW(),
  finished_at TIMESTAMP
);

-- game_moves table for replay and anti-cheat
CREATE TABLE game_moves (
  id BIGSERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  room_id UUID REFERENCES game_rooms(id),
  player_id UUID REFERENCES players(id),
  move_number INTEGER NOT NULL,
  dice_value INTEGER NOT NULL,
  piece_index INTEGER NOT NULL,
  from_pos INTEGER NOT NULL,
  to_pos INTEGER NOT NULL,
  captured BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE,
  timestamp TIMESTAMP DEFAULT NOW()
);

-- Indexes for fast queries
CREATE INDEX idx_rooms_code ON game_rooms(room_code);
CREATE INDEX idx_rooms_status ON game_rooms(status);
CREATE INDEX idx_moves_room ON game_moves(room_id, move_number);
CREATE INDEX idx_players_rating ON players(rating DESC);

-- Enable Row Level Security (RLS) for multi-tenant safety
ALTER TABLE game_rooms ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY;
ALTER TABLE game_moves ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY;

Step 7 — Domain Configuration

After obtaining your server IP or Railway subdomain, configure DNS records to point your domain to your deployment. Use Cloudflare for DNS management — it provides free DDoS protection, CDN, and automatic HTTPS rewrites.

Type    Name    Content              Proxy Status    TTL
A       @       YOUR_SERVER_IP       DNS only        Auto
A       www     YOUR_SERVER_IP       DNS only        Auto
CNAME   api     yourapp.railway.app  DNS only        Auto   # For Railway subdomains
TXT     @       v=spf1 include:_spf.yourdomain.com ~all   Auto   # Email SPF record

Set Cloudflare SSL/TLS mode to Full (strict) and enable Always Use HTTPS. For Railway deployments, Cloudflare proxy status should be "DNS only" since Railway handles its own SSL termination.

Step 8 — Post-Deployment Verification

Health Checks

Verify all services are responding correctly.

# Check HTTP health endpoint
curl https://yourludogame.com/health

# Check WebSocket connectivity
wscat -c wss://yourludogame.com/socket.io/?EIO=4

# Check PM2 status
pm2 status
pm2 logs ludo-server --lines 30

# Check SSL certificate
openssl s_client -connect yourludogame.com:443 -servername yourludogame.com | openssl x509 -noout -dates

Monitoring & Alerts

Set up monitoring to catch issues before players notice.

UptimeRobot — free uptime monitoring with alert notifications
Sentry — JavaScript and Node.js error tracking (free tier: 5K events/month)
PM2 Plus — free for 2 servers, provides real-time metrics
Cloudflare Analytics — traffic insights and attack detection
SSL Labs — test SSL configuration quality at ssllabs.com/ssltest

Frequently Asked Questions

Use Railway if you want the fastest path to production with minimal DevOps overhead — it handles builds, databases, SSL, and environment variables automatically. Use Render if you need managed databases and are comfortable with slightly slower cold starts. Use AWS if you have compliance requirements, expect high traffic (10,000+ concurrent players), or need enterprise features like Cognito authentication and CloudFront CDN. Use a VPS if you want the lowest cost with full control and are comfortable managing your own server, SSL renewals, and backups. For most indie developers building a multiplayer Ludo game, Railway + Vercel is the optimal starting combination. See the Docker deployment guide for containerized approaches.

WebSocket connections require sticky sessions (session affinity) at the load balancer level — all messages from a single player must route to the same server instance. Without sticky sessions, a player might connect to Server A to join a room, but their next message routes to Server B which has no knowledge of that room. The two solutions are: (1) configure your load balancer's target group with stickiness enabled using the AWSALB cookie, or (2) use Redis pub/sub with the Socket.IO Redis adapter so any server can handle any player's messages. The second approach is superior for game servers because it eliminates the single-point-of-failure problem of sticky sessions and enables true horizontal scaling. The REST API guide covers multi-server architecture patterns in detail.

The essential variables are: NODE_ENV=production (enables production optimizations and disables debug logging), PORT (the port your server listens on — Railway sets this automatically), DATABASE_URL (PostgreSQL connection string), REDIS_URL (for Socket.IO adapter and session storage), JWT_SECRET (signing key for player authentication — generate with openssl rand -hex 32), and CORS_ORIGIN (comma-separated list of allowed frontend origins). Optional but recommended: GAME_TIMEOUT_SECONDS (inactive room auto-close), MAX_PLAYERS_PER_ROOM, and LOG_LEVEL. Never commit secrets to your repository — use platform secrets (Railway Variables, GitHub Secrets, AWS Parameter Store) instead.

Yes — deploy only your frontend to Vercel or Netlify (they handle CDN, SSL, and edge caching automatically), and use LudoKingAPI for the multiplayer backend. This serverless architecture eliminates server management entirely. For a full serverless approach with your own backend, use AWS Lambda for the API with API Gateway WebSockets for real-time connections. However, Lambda has cold start latency issues (1–3 seconds) that are problematic for real-time games. Railway's hobby tier at $5/month is the practical minimum for a self-hosted serverless experience without cold start issues. The tutorial covers client-side integration with hosted backends.

Purchase a domain from Cloudflare Registrar, Namecheap, or Porkbun. In your DNS provider, create an A record pointing @ to your server IP (for VPS) or a CNAME record pointing to your Railway/Render subdomain. Allow 5–30 minutes for DNS propagation globally. On Railway, go to Project Settings → Domains → Add Domain and enter your domain — Railway will automatically provision an SSL certificate. On a VPS, run sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com to obtain a Let's Encrypt certificate. Cloudflare's free tier provides the best DNS management with automatic DDoS protection — set the proxy status to "Proxied" for Cloudflare's CDN and WAF.

PM2 runs your Node.js process directly on the server — simpler for single-server setups, faster startup, and easier log management. It handles process monitoring, auto-restart on crash, and log rotation out of the box. Docker packages your application with its entire runtime environment into a portable container — the game runs identically on your laptop, a test server, and production. Docker is superior for multi-service architectures (database + Redis + your game server) and for horizontal scaling with Kubernetes. For a single Ludo game server with 100–500 concurrent players, PM2 is simpler and uses less memory. For production with Redis, PostgreSQL, and multiple game server instances, Docker Compose or Kubernetes provides better isolation and reproducibility. See the Docker deployment guide for containerized setups.

The GitHub Actions workflow in Step 5 automates your entire deployment pipeline. Push code to GitHub, and the pipeline: runs tests, builds the production bundle, uploads artifacts, SSHs into your server, pulls the latest code, installs dependencies, rebuilds, and restarts PM2 — all without manual intervention. Store your server's SSH private key as a GitHub Secret (never commit it), add it as a Deploy Key in your repository settings, and configure the appleboy/ssh-action in your workflow. The workflow includes graceful PM2 stop/start, health checks after deployment, and notifications on success or failure. For Railway, deployments are triggered automatically on every push to the connected branch — no workflow file needed. The scaling guide covers advanced deployment patterns including blue-green deployments and canary releases.

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Deploy Ludo Game — Complete Step-by-Step Guide