Hosting a static site with S3 and CloudFront: deploying a React app

I had deployed projects built with React several times before, but I had only tried the easy, so-called 'one-click' way, mostly on platforms like Vercel, GitHub, and Spotify.

Then I heard that a lot of people deploy with AWS, and I wanted to try deploying on AWS myself, so this time I gave it a shot.

I followed the blog post below. Its explanations are very easy to follow, so that post alone was enough to get through the deployment process.

https://velog.io/@ijy1995/AWS-S3%EB%A1%9C-REACT-%EB%B0%B0%ED%8F%AC%ED%95%98%EA%B8%B0

Deploying REACT with AWS S3 (in Korean)

Thoughts

When I started the AWS deployment, I wondered at first, "Can I do a good job deploying some way other than Vercel?" But as I followed the steps one at a time, it turned out easier than I expected.

In particular, after I bought a domain from Gabia (a Korean domain registrar), connected it through AWS Route 53, and deployed with S3, the site was served over HTTP, and Chrome showed a 'Not secure' warning. To fix this I used CloudFront, AWS's CDN service, and it solved the problem cleanly.

This cleared up my questions about deploying on AWS, and now I expect I'll be able to understand and answer with confidence when deployment questions or discussions come up.

Side note

A day after deploying, I saw the charges climbing fast, so I took the deployed site down right away...