There is also `play dist` and `play stage`. They both wrap up all necessary assets / dependencies so that you don't even need play installed in order to start a play server (as the play framework jar gets bundled too). We use this for deploying rather than `play start`. The difference between dist and stage is that dist creates a single zip file in the target directory, whereas stage does not. Both create a file named 'start' in the target directory. The docs are not completely clear on that point.

http://www.playframework.com/documentation/2.1.0/ProductionD...