: What is the most effective way of deploying a website? I am aware of a few ways to deploy websites: FTP Export from source control Base the site on a source control checkout I can see some

@Jamie184

I use git with a couple of customized hooks for deployment. This even has the advantage that I can run several branches for dev/test/beta/production sites and do some CI. For urgent patches, git always allows to cherry-pick specific commits from one branch into the next.

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@Pope3001725

I prefer deploys which are automated and repeatable. You'd definitely want to start with a source control tag so you know exactly what you deployed and can re-deploy it anytime. Then use scripts to push that to the server, something along the lines of Capistrano, or just a homemade bash script or something.

For sites that use compiled code, if the testing servers match the production servers it's probably best to compile the code once, and push that same compiled version to production once it's been tested.

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@Marchetta884

What has worked best for us on Stack Overflow (and meets point 2 of the Joel Test) is a continuous integration solution, allowing one-click building of our production sites, as well as automated builds of our developer tier upon new code check-in.

We use the .NET flavor of CruiseControl, with the exciting name.. CruiseControl.NET :)

Some of the key features include:



Integration with a variety of Source Control systems
Integration with other external tools, such as NAnt and Visual Studio
Can build multiple projects on one server
Remote management and reporting



We've been extremely happy with this open-source software and would recommend it to any team wishing to streamline their build process.

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