Serve your built React app from Express with a SPA fallback route

The React app builds fine and runs great with npm run dev. I have no idea how to make Express serve that build.

Beginner to intermediateRead 6 minDoing: an hour or two6 steps

What you'll have at the end

Express serving the finished React build under its real address, a fallback that loads the app for any of its own page addresses, and a genuinely missing file still failing with an honest 404 instead of a borrowed page

Before you start

You need

A React project whose production build step finishes cleanly into its own output folder, and a working Express server file with at least one route already answering requests.

Not covered

Deploying this server to a live host, and adding the compression or security middleware a public-facing API also needs before it takes real traffic.

Leans on

6 steps

Where to go next

Have you added CORS, Helmet and rate limiting to your Express API?

reach for this once this server is about to face real internet traffic, since serving the build alone adds none of the security headers or rate limiting a public site needs.

Checked 25 Aug 2026

Part of the Express.js cookbook