Deploying Docusaurus Sites
React-based docs SSG from Meta, deploy build output to any static host with i18n and versioning.
PlatformsIntermediate
Why
Docusaurus is Meta's docs framework powering React, Jest, and Babel docs. It offers versioning, i18n, MDX, and plugin ecosystem out of the box — ideal for large project documentation.
Platform-as-a-Service adoption grew 24% in 2024 as teams shift from VM management to git-push deploys. the cloud infrastructure market reached $330B in 2024, growing 22% year-over-year (Synergy Research), and PaaS layers capture the majority of new workloads.
When
Use Docusaurus for versioned project docs, API references, and multi-language sites. Avoid for small docs — VitePress is lighter.
How
1. Build — npm run build outputs build/
2. Deploy — upload build/ to any static host
3. Versioning — docusaurus docs:version 1.0
4. i18n — docusaurus write-translations --locale fr
5. Base — set url and baseUrl in docusaurus.config.js
6. Search — @docusaurus/preset-classic includes Algolia option
Example
// docusaurus.config.js
module.exports = {
title: "My Site",
url: "https://myapp.com",
baseUrl: "/docs/",
presets: [["@docusaurus/preset-classic", {}]],
i18n: { defaultLocale: "en", locales: ["en", "fr"] },
};
// Deploy: npm run build && npx wrangler pages deploy build
Common Problems
- ⚠baseUrl mismatch — assets 404, set to match deployment sub-path
- ⚠Versioned docs bloated — each version copies all docs, prune old versions
- ⚠Configuration drift between environments — use infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/Pulumi) to keep dev/staging/prod identical
Best Practices
- ✓Use includeCurrentVersion: false to skip current version dir — cleaner structure
- ✓Configure Algolia DocSearch for large docs — local search doesn't scale past 500 pages
- ✓Set up health checks and graceful shutdown — handle SIGTERM to drain in-flight requests before exit