Skip to content
deploy-stack

Migrating from Heroku to AWS (Procfile Support)

When migrating from Heroku or Render, you likely rely on a Procfile to define your application’s architecture (e.g., a web server and a background worker like Celery or Sidekiq).

deploy-stack natively understands Heroku Procfile syntax and automatically translates it into a production-grade, multi-container AWS architecture.

How it Works

Section titled “How it Works”

When you run npx deploy-stack, the CLI scans your root directory for a Procfile.

The web Process

Section titled “The web Process”

If the CLI detects a web: declaration:

  1. It overrides the default Docker CMD.
  2. It provisions an AWS ECS Fargate service for this process.
  3. It automatically wires this specific container to your public-facing Application Load Balancer (ALB) so it can receive internet traffic.

The worker Process

Section titled “The worker Process”

If the CLI detects a worker: declaration:

  1. It generates a completely separate ECS Fargate task definition (worker.tf).
  2. It spins up the worker in a fully isolated private subnet.
  3. It intentionally strips all public ingress, ensuring your background workers are secure and can only communicate with your database or message brokers internally.

Example

Section titled “Example”

Your Procfile:

web: gunicorn myapp.wsgi
worker: celery -A myapp worker -l info

The Result: Running deploy-stack will automatically generate the Terraform required to spin up both containers simultaneously from the exact same Docker image, scaling them independently based on your needs.