Deploy Appwrite on AWS

Appwrite is an open-source backend server for web and mobile applications. It provides a set of APIs and tools for developers to build and manage their app's backend.

Appwrite includes user authentication, database management, file storage, and more. It works with various programming languages and frameworks, and runs on-premises or in the cloud.

It also offers a user-friendly dashboard for managing your app's backend, making it a convenient solution for developers at any level of experience.

One-click deploy

Click Deploy with Microtica below and follow the template steps to deploy your Appwrite on your AWS account.

What will be provisioned on AWS

Since Microtica deploys on your cloud account, you get complete transparency over which resources will be provisioned.

The Appwrite template creates two components in the environment:

• VPC — VPC, subnets and networking
• EKS Cluster — Container infrastructure based on Kubernetes, application load balancer and persistent storage

Built-in environment variables

Below is the list of built-in environment variables provided in the Appwrite runtime.

Custom environment variables

To simplify the initial setup, this template sets the default configuration for the Appwrite application. If you need to customize the configuration and use custom variables like _APP_SMTP_HOST, _APP_SMTP_PORT (see the full list of environment variables), you can do that in two ways.

Configure environment variables from the Microtica Console

To configure an environment variable from the Microtica Console, first define the variable in the schema.json file. The input properties defined here become available in the Microtica Console. This approach gives you consistent configuration for the application along with strong validation rules.

{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#",
  "$id": "schema://microtica/schema.json",
  "title": "Application schema",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
      "inputs": {
          "type": "object",
          "properties": {
              "_APP_SMTP_HOST": {
                  "type": "string",
                  "default": "smtp.sendgrid.net",
                  "description": "SMTP server host name address. Use an empty string to disable all mail sending from the server. The default value for this variable is an empty string"
              }
          },
          "required": []
      }
  },
  "additionalProperties": false
}

Next, to inject the environment variable into the application container runtime, reference the variable using the {{ENV_VAR_NAME}} syntax.

# ...

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
namespace: "{{MIC_NAMESPACE}}"
name: "{{MIC_NAME}}-appwrite"
labels:
  app: "{{MIC_NAME}}-appwrite"
  microticaService: "{{MIC_NAME}}"
spec:
replicas: 1
template:
  spec:
    containers:
      - name: "appwrite-appwrite"
        image: appwrite/appwrite:1.2.0
        env:
          # Reference the environment variable.
          # During deployment the placeholder will be replaced with the configured value.
          - name: _APP_SMTP_HOST
            value: "{{_APP_SMTP_HOST}}"
          # ...

# ...

Configure environment variables directly in the Kubernetes spec

To configure an environment variable directly in the Kubernetes spec, update the kube.config file.

As in the previous example, provide the environment variable value directly in the spec.

# ...

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
namespace: "{{MIC_NAMESPACE}}"
name: "{{MIC_NAME}}-appwrite"
labels:
  app: "{{MIC_NAME}}-appwrite"
  microticaService: "{{MIC_NAME}}"
spec:
replicas: 1
template:
  spec:
    containers:
      - name: "appwrite-appwrite"
        image: appwrite/appwrite:1.2.0
        env:
          # Provide the environment variable value directly in the spec.
          - name: _APP_SMTP_HOST
            value: "smtp.sendgrid.net"
          # ...

# ...

Estimated AWS cost

The estimated AWS cost depends on the configuration of the Appwrite infrastructure. Below is the cost breakdown, assuming the resources run all the time:

• EKS Cluster - $70/month
• Application Load Balancer - $17/month
• 2 x t3.large EC2 instances - $60/month

Total cost per month with this minimal configuration is approximately $150/month.

Optimize AWS cost

To save costs while running Appwrite in a non-production environment, run it Monday to Friday, 8 hours per day. This schedule can cut your cloud expenses by at least 65%.

In the Resources or Cost Dashboard, create a Saving Schedule to apply these savings.

Known issues

• Usage stats are not available
• Cannot add alternative custom domains
  • Temporary solution: add an additional ingress resource in .microtica/kube.config

Next steps

• Connect an AWS account
• Assign a custom domain
• Browse all templates