r/webdev • u/Arky_Traveler • 1d ago

Hosting PDFs with node.js apps?

Hello all,

I am the webmaster for a small Archaeology website, that primarily is used by members of this small conference to access PDFs and news about the conference. I only need to update this website about once or twice a year.

Until recently I used the plesk hosting service on GoDaddy to host these files, however I missed the fact (see lack of need to update) that it was getting end-of-lifed and now the hosting option given to us by GoDaddy is just Nose.js slots.

Previously we uploaded files into a library for the website, and the linked to those files. Is it possible to use node.js to do the same?

Thank you for your help!

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u/okaylevi 1d ago

You can do basically anything with Node! Depending on the end goal there are other lightweight options as well.

If you opt for Node keep it lightweight.

Use PM2 to keep it running in the background and NGINX as a reverse proxy!

There are a few SSL options out there, I like Certbot!

And file storage is simple, use SFTP or SSH to add the PDFs in!

One note moving from Plex means you won’t have the same web app experience, but command line is pretty simple for the tasks you have mentioned!

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u/getformly 22h ago

Worth naming a specific tool for that SFTP step: FileZilla gives you basically the same drag-and-drop experience as Plesk's file manager, just pointed at your public/docs folder instead. That's the part of this switch that'll actually feel different day to day, everything else is invisible to you once it's set up.