Strapi on Railway
Railway publishes its own guide for deploying Strapi.
Open-source headless CMS running as a long-lived Node server, requiring a relational database in production and an upload provider for media that must survive deploys.
What Strapi needs.
Every host claims to run Strapi, so the claim on its own decides nothing. These are the things Strapi actually requires from the platform underneath it, and what Railway publishes about each. Railway documents 3 of the 4.
Managed databases
Limited
Strapi's SQLite default is a development convenience. A production install needs Postgres or MySQL, and a guide that leaves you on SQLite is showing you a prototype.
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- Databases — Railway Docs ↗
“Railway enables you to deploy and manage databases alongside your applications. [...] The fastest way to deploy a database is through Railway's database templates [...] These templates are maintained by Railway and come pre-configured with sensible defaults.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
Persistent storage
Supported
Uploaded media is written to the local filesystem unless an upload provider is configured. On an ephemeral disk the media library empties at the next deploy while the content entries still reference it.
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- Volumes | Railway Docs ↗
“Volumes are a feature that enables persistent data for services on Railway. [...] When mounting a volume to a service, a volume is made available to the service on the specified mount path.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
Persistent processes
Supported
Strapi is a long-lived Node server serving both the content API and the admin panel. It is not a request-scoped function and cannot be deployed as one.
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- Services — Railway Docs ↗
“Persistent services: Services that are always running. Examples include web applications, backend APIs, message queues, database services, etc.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
Memory (entry plan)
Not documented
The admin panel is rebuilt on boot and after every content-type change. That build is the memory spike, and it is what decides whether the smallest instance survives a deploy.
What Railway documents.
Railway publishes its own guide for deploying Strapi.
This guide covers deploying Strapi on Railway with a Postgres database and persistent file storage. [...] A Strapi instance with the admin panel. A Postgres database for content storage. Persistent file uploads via a Railway Volume or Storage Bucket. A public domain for the API and admin panel.
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- Self-host Strapi with Postgres and File Uploads — Railway Docs ↗
“This guide covers deploying Strapi on Railway with a Postgres database and persistent file storage. [...] A Strapi instance with the admin panel. A Postgres database for content storage. Persistent file uploads via a Railway Volume or Storage Bucket. A public domain for the API and admin panel.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
What it costs to run there.
- Entry paid plan
- $5 / month (Hobby)
- Pricing model
- Plan fee that includes an equivalent usage credit
- When you exceed a cap
- Billed automatically: on the Hobby plan ($5/month, includes $5 of resource usage) usage above the included amount is charged as a delta on top of the subscription — no throttling or suspension is documented
- Regions
- 4 regions: California, Virginia, Amsterdam, Singapore
Sources (3) →Sources ↓
- Railway plans ↗
“Hobby Plan: For indie hackers and developers to build and deploy personal projects — $5/month”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
- Pricing Plans | Railway Docs ↗
“If your total resource usage exceeds $5 in any given billing period, you will be charged the delta”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
- Railway regions ↗
“US West Metal — California, USA; US East Metal — Virginia, USA; EU West Metal — Amsterdam, Netherlands; Southeast Asia Metal — Singapore”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
Whether it suits you.
Teams that want a plan fee which doubles as usage credit, and deploy services straight from a Dockerfile without managing servers. The $5 Hobby fee comes back as $5 of resource usage.
Consider something else if…
You need to run in a region outside California, Virginia, Amsterdam or Singapore.
Visit Railway documentation