🚀 Deploying Applications with AWS App Runner: A Simpler Path to Containerized Web Apps

In the cloud-native world, developers want to focus on code, not on provisioning infrastructure or wiring up load balancers. AWS App Runner makes this a reality.

In this blog, we’ll show you how to deploy a web app in minutes using AWS App Runner and a public container image from Amazon ECR Public—no Docker build or CLI required.

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📦 What is AWS App Runner?

AWS App Runner is a fully managed container deployment service—think of it as Fargate 2.0 for web apps. With just a container image or source code repo, you get:

• ⚙ Autobuild and deploy (from source or image)

• ⚡ Load balancing with zero configuration

• 🔒 Automatic TLS certificate setup

• 📊 Logging and metrics via Amazon CloudWatch

• 🔄 ECR image upload or GitHub source update triggers

• VPC connectivity is supported

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🎯 Use Case: Deploy a React App with App Runner

We’ll deploy a React app using a public container image hosted on Amazon ECR Public:

public.ecr.aws/harish343/reactapp:8

This could be your own frontend app or a sample UI built with React—fully containerized and ready to run.

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🛠 Step-by-Step: Deploying via App Runner Console

✅ Prerequisites

• AWS account

• IAM permissions to use App Runner

• Public ECR image URL:

    public.ecr.aws/harish343/reactapp:8
  

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Step 1: Open App Runner Console

1. Go to the App Runner Console.

2. Click “Create service”.

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Step 2: Choose a Container Image

1. Under Source, select “Container registry”.

2. Choose “Amazon ECR Public”.

3. Paste the image URI:

    public.ecr.aws/harish343/reactapp:8
   

4. Click Next.

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Step 3: Configure Service

• Service name: react-app-runner

• Port: Leave default or set to 80 if required

• Auto scaling: Leave default or customize

• Environment variables (optional): Add runtime values if needed

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Step 4: Deploy

1. Review your configuration.

2. Click “Create and deploy”.

App Runner will pull the image, provision the infrastructure, and give you a public HTTPS endpoint—usually ready in 2–3 minutes.

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🌐 Access Your Application

Once deployment completes, you’ll get a secure URL like:

https://react-app-runner-abc123.us-east-1.awsapprunner.com

Open it in your browser—you’ll see your deployed React app running live! 🎉

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💡 Tips and Best Practices

• 🛡 Use IAM roles if your app needs access to AWS services (like S3 or DynamoDB).

• 🔁 Enable auto-deploy to refresh the app when the image tag (latest) changes.

• 🧩 Set environment variables for API URLs, tokens, and configs.

• 📊 Use CloudWatch for logging and performance monitoring.

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📌 Summary

✅ AWS App Runner makes deploying containerized apps effortless.
✅ You can skip the Docker build process entirely by using public container images, like:

public.ecr.aws/harish343/reactapp:8

Whether you’re building MVPs, internal dashboards, or microservices, App Runner helps you focus on shipping, not provisioning.