Deploy React (Vite) on Oracle Cloud's free tier

At a glance

Running React (Vite) on Ampere ARM

A static React bundle is the lightest possible workload for an Ampere A1 core — a single 1 OCPU instance serves a Vite build to thousands of visitors a day without breaking a sweat.

Steps

1. Add an SPA-aware Nginx config. Without try_files, a hard refresh on /dashboard returns a 404 because no such file exists on disk.

   server {
     listen 80;
     root /usr/share/nginx/html;
     location /assets/ { expires 1y; add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable"; }
     location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; }
   }

2. Build the image. Cheaploy builds on the VM so the ARM64 architecture always matches the host.
3. Deploy and attach your domain. Point an A record at the instance IP; TLS is issued automatically on first request.

Dockerfile for React (Vite) on ARM64

FROM node:22-alpine AS build
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

FROM nginx:alpine
COPY --from=build /app/dist /usr/share/nginx/html
COPY nginx.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
EXPOSE 80
CMD ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]

Need one tailored to your repository? The free Dockerfile generator writes an ARM-ready multi-stage build for you.

Common mistakes

• Vite env vars must start with VITE_: Anything else is stripped from the client bundle at build time.
• Blank page after deploy: Usually a wrong `base` in vite.config.ts. Keep it as `/` unless you serve from a subpath.
• Stale assets: Cache hashed files under /assets aggressively, but never cache index.html.

Related reading

• /guides/deploy-react-app-free
• /alternatives/netlify-free
• /tools/dockerfile-generator
• All deployment guides