Last updated June 14, 2023

Parse Server is a Parse API compatible Express router package and an alternative to the discontinued hosted Parse service.

This guide shows you how to deploy and configure a Parse server on Heroku. A Heroku account is required, sign-up for free.

Create an app

To create a new app, visit the Heroku Dashboard and select Create new app from the drop-down menu.

Install a MongoDB add-on

Click the Resources tab, then select and install the MongoLab add-on.

Connect to GitHub

To connect the parse-server-example to your Heroku app, you must enable the GitHub integration, and connect the app to the parse-server-example repo.

When the connection is established, the dashboard will update.

Deploy

Trigger a manual deployment of the main branch.

Once the build is complete, click view to open the app in a new browser tab.

If the parse-server-example has been successfully deployed, you will now see, “I dream of being a web site.”

You can now use the standard REST interface, JavaScript SDK, and any of the Parse open-source SDKs.

$ curl -X POST \
  -H "X-Parse-Application-Id: myAppId" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{}' \
  https://example-app-1234567890ab.herokuapp.com/parse/functions/hello
..
{"result":"Hi"}%

Configuring your Parse server with config vars

The Parse server is configured during instantiation. The index.js file in the parse-server-example specifies defaults, which are superseded by config vars, made available to our application via environment variables.

var api = new ParseServer({
  databaseURI: databaseUri || 'mongodb://localhost:27017/dev',
  cloud: process.env.CLOUD_CODE_MAIN || __dirname + '/cloud/main.js',
  appId: process.env.APP_ID || 'myAppId',
  masterKey: process.env.MASTER_KEY || 'myMasterKey'
});

var app = express();

// Serve the Parse API on the /parse URL prefix
var mountPath = process.env.PARSE_MOUNT || '/parse';

You can edit config vars from Settings tab in Dashboard: