Vite should only be loaded in development (or when building). Loading it in production is unnecessary and significantly bloats the production process.

In production:

• Make sure you don't load the vite package nor Vike's Vite plugin.
• Make sure you don't call createDevMiddleware(). (The development middleware isn't needed in production.)

  You can import createDevMiddleware in production, but make sure you don't call it.

  // Environment: production
  import { createDevMiddleware } from 'vike/server' // ✅ You can import it
  createDevMiddleware()                             // ❌ You shouldn't call it

In development, if you use a server without vike-photon (i.e. you manually integrate your server), you must use createDevMiddleware() in order to add the development middleware to your server. (If you use vike-photon, the development middleware is added automatically and you don't need to use createDevMiddleware().)

See also

• process.env.NODE_ENV