I manage a small archaeology conference website that mainly provides news and downloadable PDFs for attendees. The site only needs updates once or twice a year. I previously used a Plesk hosting panel to upload PDF files into a folder or document library, then linked to them from the website. My hosting provider now presents the service as Node.js hosting, and I'm unsure whether I can still upload and serve PDFs the same way. Is Node.js suitable for this, and what would the simplest setup be?
2 Answers
If you do need to manage the server yourself, PDFs can be uploaded over SFTP or SSH and served through Node.js. A typical production setup would use Node.js behind NGINX, with a process manager such as PM2 and an SSL certificate from Certbot. That works, but it is considerably more administration than simply uploading files through a hosting panel, so the lightweight control-panel option is probably best for this use case.
Yes, Node.js can serve PDFs, usually by placing them in a public directory and configuring the app to serve static files. However, for a site that only needs occasional file uploads, you may not need to build anything with Node.js at all. If your hosting provider still gives you access to the existing control panel or file manager, you can likely continue uploading the files and linking to them directly.
I’m not very experienced with server administration and was worried I had to rebuild the site. I later realized the provider had only changed the name and interface of the hosting service, and I could still access the familiar control panel.