diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 6f64e93f2..0f4060e6c 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 ### Changed
 
 - Removed the environment variable `ENABLE_FEATURE_CUSTOM_SYMBOLS`
+- Changed the default `NODE_ENV` variable from `development` to `production` to avoid a requirement for self-hosted users to specify this value or receive `ENOENT: no such file or directory` error message on startup.
 
 ## 1.242.0 - 2023-03-04
 
diff --git a/apps/api/src/app/frontend.middleware.ts b/apps/api/src/app/frontend.middleware.ts
index a43afa3f9..639c6bc3d 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/app/frontend.middleware.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/app/frontend.middleware.ts
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ export class FrontendMiddleware implements NestMiddleware {
   ) {
     const NODE_ENV =
       this.configService.get<'development' | 'production'>('NODE_ENV') ??
-      'development';
+      'production';
 
     this.isProduction = NODE_ENV === 'production';
 
diff --git a/apps/api/src/main.ts b/apps/api/src/main.ts
index e53ade52c..81a33c231 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/main.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/main.ts
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ async function bootstrap() {
 
   const NODE_ENV =
     configService.get<'development' | 'production'>('NODE_ENV') ??
-    'development';
+    'production';
 
   const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule, {
     logger: