Building your app
Localhost vs live
Localhost is your app running only on your own computer, while live means it runs on a server that anyone on the internet can reach.
Also called local server, 127.0.0.1
The word localhost is the name a computer uses for itself. A link that starts with localhost works for you and for nobody else. Send that link to a user or an investor and they see an error, not your app.
When this shows up
Example, not a real founder: you paste a link to your demo into an email to a possible customer. They reply that the page will not load. The link started with localhost, so it pointed at your laptop instead of the internet.
What to do next
Before you share any link, open it on your phone with wifi turned off. If it does not load there, deploy the app and share the live address instead.
Go deeper
My app works on my laptop but not for my friends. Why?
One set of tools you can build your app with and run on your own, one for each layer, each with a reason.
Read the guide