Apache APISIX — Railway Deployment Template

Cloud-native microservices API gateway with admin dashboard. APISIX + etcd companion on Railway — full Admin API and dashboard included.

Deploy and Host

Deploy Apache APISIX on Railway in one click. This template provisions APISIX with an etcd companion service — the full Admin API and dashboard are available out of the box. SSL is handled automatically by Railway.

About Hosting

This template runs two services:

APISIX Gateway (port 9080) — routes, plugins, and rate limits
Stream proxy (TCP 9100, UDP 9200) — L4 TCP/UDP proxying, managed from the dashboard's Stream section
etcd (port 2379, private network) — configuration store backing the Admin API
Admin API + Dashboard (port 9180) — manage routes via REST API or the web UI at /ui
Health endpoint — /health returns 200 for Railway healthchecks

Why Deploy

APISIX is a top-tier open-source API gateway (CNCF project) used by companies like Verizon, Robinhood, and Wipro. Unlike the standalone variant, this template ships the full admin experience — create routes, manage plugins, and monitor traffic from the dashboard, with etcd as the durable config store.

Common Use Cases

API gateway — route, rate-limit, and authenticate traffic to your microservices
Admin dashboard — manage routes and plugins from the web UI at /ui
Plugin playground — key-auth, JWT, rate limiting, CORS, and 80+ plugins
Pay-per-call API — pair with x402 for monetized API access

Dependencies for APISIX

Runtime

Dependency	Version/Type	Purpose
APISIX	3.18.0	API gateway (OpenResty-based)
etcd	3.5.11	Configuration store for Admin API
OpenResty	bundled	Nginx runtime for APISIX
LuaJIT	bundled	Plugin execution engine

Deployment Dependencies

Tool	Purpose
Docker	Container runtime (managed by Railway)
Railway	Hosting platform
Railway Volume	Persistent storage for etcd data

✨ Features

Admin API + Dashboard — full route management at /ui and /apisix/admin/*
etcd companion — durable config store, auto-provisioned
Declarative or dynamic routing — create routes via API/dashboard, or preload in etcd
Pay-per-call ready — integrate with x402 for monetized API access

🚀 Quick Start

One-click Deploy

Manual Deploy

git clone https://github.com/INAPP-Mobile/railway-apisix.git
cd apisix
railway up

⚙️ Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
`PORT`	✅ Yes	Port APISIX listens on (default `9080`)
`APISIX_ADMIN_KEY`	✅ Yes	Admin API key. Must match `config.yaml`.

📡 Usage

Dashboard

Open https://your-app.up.railway.app/ui and sign in with the admin key.

Admin API

# List routes
curl https://your-app.up.railway.app/apisix/admin/routes \
  -H "X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1"

# Create a route proxying to a backend
curl -X PUT https://your-app.up.railway.app/apisix/admin/routes/hello \
  -H "X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "uri": "/hello",
    "upstream": {
      "type": "roundrobin",
      "nodes": {"httpbin.org:80": 1}
    }
  }'

Gateway

curl https://your-app.up.railway.app/hello

License

Apache License 2.0