Development vs Production: Resource Requirements

Date: 2025-11-08 Context: Ahaia Music web app setup

Key Lesson

Development and production modes in Node.js/Next.js have drastically different resource requirements.

Development Mode (npm run dev)

Memory Usage: ~250 MB for Next.js

• Hot Module Replacement (HMR) - watches files and auto-reloads
• Source maps - for debugging
• Dev server overhead
• Unminified code
• Development dependencies loaded

Process Tree:

npm → shell → node (next CLI) → next-server

Use Case: Local development, coding, testing changes

Not suitable for: Production hosting or resource-constrained environments

Production Mode (npm run build → npm start)

Memory Usage: ~50-100 MB for Next.js

• Optimized, minified bundles
• No file watching
• No source maps
• Production-only dependencies
• Efficient runtime

Build Step:

• npm run build - compile and optimize (resource-intensive, done once)
• Can be done on different machine or with temporary swap
• Outputs static .next directory

Runtime:

• npm start - serves pre-built files (lightweight)
• This is what runs on production server

Server Specs Context

Current Server:

• RAM: 909 MB
• CPU: 2 cores
• Disk: 19 GB (9.1 GB free)
• No swap

Development Mode:

• ❌ Tight - only 116 MB available, dev needs ~250 MB
• Risk of OOM (out-of-memory) kills

Production Mode:

• ✅ Adequate for 1-5 users (~50-100 MB usage)
• ✅ Supports Phase 1 (5-20 concurrent users per architecture docs)

Deployment Strategy

Option 1: Build Elsewhere

# On dev machine (laptop/CI/CD)
npm install
npm run build

# Copy .next/, public/, package.json to server
rsync -av .next/ server:/path/to/app/.next/
rsync -av public/ server:/path/to/app/public/

# On server
npm install --production  # Only prod dependencies
npm start

Option 2: Add Temporary Swap

# On server (before build)
sudo fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile

# Build
npm run build

# Remove swap (optional)
sudo swapoff /swapfile
sudo rm /swapfile

Option 3: Stop Services During Build

# Free up memory
sudo systemctl stop <other-services>

# Build
npm run build

# Restart services
sudo systemctl start <other-services>

# Run production
npm start

Recommendations

1. For Active Development: Use a separate dev machine or add swap
2. For Production Hosting: Current server specs are fine
3. Build Process: Do builds off-server or with temporary resources
4. Runtime: Production mode is lightweight enough for this server

Memory Breakdown Example

Development (npm run dev):

next dev processes:     250 MB
Other services:         500 MB
System:                 150 MB
Available:              ~10 MB  ⚠️ Too tight!

Production (npm start):

next start process:      80 MB
Other services:         500 MB
System:                 150 MB
Available:              180 MB  ✅ Comfortable

Related Links

• Next.js Deployment Docs
• Ahaia Architecture Overview

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Takeaway: Don't judge production requirements by development memory usage. They're completely different workloads.