Vercel is the recommended platform for hosting Nesscart due to its native support for Next.js features.

1. Push your Nesscart code to a private **GitHub repository**.
2. Log in to Vercel and click **"New Project"**.
3. Import your Nesscart repository.
4. In the **Environment Variables** section, add all keys from your `.env.example` file (see MongoDB & Cloudinary steps below).
5. Click **Deploy**. Vercel will automatically build and assign a production URL.

Nesscart uses Cloudinary for high-performance image hosting and on-the-fly optimization.

1. Create a free account at Cloudinary.com.
2. Go to your **Dashboard** and find your **Product Environment Credentials**.
3. Copy the following to your environment variables:
   • NEXT_PUBLIC_CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME
   • CLOUDINARY_API_KEY
   • CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET

A MongoDB database is required to store your products, orders, and site data.

1. Sign up for MongoDB Atlas (Free Cluster works great).
2. Create a new **Database User** with read/write permissions.
3. Under **Network Access**, whitelist `0.0.0.0/0` (or your server IP) to allow connections.
4. Click **Connect** -> **Drivers** and copy the **Connection String**.
5. Replace <password> with your actual user password and add it to DATABASE_URL in your env settings.

For Hostinger, we recommend a **VPS** running Ubuntu for the best performance. You can also follow the officialHostinger Node.js Deployment Guide for detailed steps.

1. Connect to your VPS via SSH.
2. Install Node.js: curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | sudo -E bash - && sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
3. Clone your GitHub repo: git clone https://github.com/youruser/nesscart.git
4. Install dependencies and build: npm install && npm run build
5. Start the app using **PM2**: sudo npm install -g pm2 && pm2 start npm --name "nesscart" -- start
6. Configure **Nginx** as a reverse proxy to point your domain to port `3000`.