How To Use Caddy With Your Node.js App for Automatic HTTPS

Using Docker

Source: Caddy on GitHub

Caddy is a web server famous for providing automatic SSL encryption. I just tried it out and was amazed. It actually works like a charm. After setting everything up as I am describing it in a second, my website instantly had an SSL encryption — No errors or warnings. Here is how to use Caddy as a reverse proxy for a Node.js app (or any other app).

First of all, you need a domain to get working SSL encryption for your web app. Ensure the domain points to your server, e. g., a droplet on DigitalOcean.

Then, make sure you have Docker and Docker Compose installed. In your project folder, create a file docker-compose.yml and copy the following contents into it:

version: '3.8'
services:
  app:
    image: node:20
    volumes:
      - .:/app
      - /app/node_modules
    working_dir: /app
    environment:
      - NODE_ENV=development
    command: bash -c "npm install && npm start"
  
  caddy:
    image: caddy:2
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile
      - caddy_data:/data
      - caddy_config:/config
    depends_on:
      - app

volumes:
  caddy_data:
  caddy_config:

Next, we need to create a configuration file for Caddy itself, which is named Caddyfile. Make sure it…