Deploy and Host Buzz on Railway

Buzz is a production-ready Nostr relay designed for authenticated communities, private collaboration, media hosting, and Git-backed content. Unlike traditional relays that primarily forward events, Buzz includes integrated authentication, membership management, object storage, and persistent infrastructure components, making it suitable for deploying complete decentralized social applications.

About Hosting Buzz

This Railway template deploys Buzz using the official ghcr.io/block/buzz:latest container image together with all required infrastructure components. The stack automatically provisions PostgreSQL for persistent data, Redis for caching and pub/sub, and an S3-compatible object storage service for media uploads.

All required environment variables are pre-configured, generated, or linked automatically through Railway. During deployment, the only value you need to provide is your 64-character hexadecimal Nostr public key (RELAY_OWNER_PUBKEY). Once deployed, Buzz automatically performs database migrations and starts with authentication, media hosting, Git storage, and relay membership enabled by default.

Common Use Cases

Host a private or community-focused Nostr relay.
Store and serve media using integrated S3-compatible object storage.
Deploy a production-ready decentralized social infrastructure with minimal configuration.

Why Choose Buzz?

Feature	Buzz	Most Traditional Nostr Relays
Authentication & Membership	✅	❌
Private Community Support	✅	❌
Built-in Media Storage	✅	❌
S3-Compatible Object Storage	✅	❌
Git-backed Content Storage	✅	❌
PostgreSQL Support	✅	❌
Redis Integration	✅	❌
Automatic Database Migrations	✅	❌
Production-ready by Default	✅	❌
Railway One-Click Deployment	✅	❌
Persistent Media Hosting	✅	❌
Self-hosted	✅	✅
Open Source	✅	✅

Dependencies for Buzz Hosting

This template automatically provisions the following services:

PostgreSQL
Redis
S3-compatible Object Storage (MinIO)
MinIO Console

Generate Your RELAY_OWNER_PUBKEY

This template requires your 64-character hexadecimal Nostr public key (RELAY_OWNER_PUBKEY).

Do not use an npub... value. Buzz requires the raw 64-character hexadecimal public key.

Option 1 — Generate using Nostr Tool (Recommended)

Visit https://nostrtool.com/
Generate a new keypair.
Copy the Hex Public Key.
Paste it into the RELAY_OWNER_PUBKEY environment variable during deployment.

Option 2 — Convert an Existing `npub`

If you already have an npub identity, you can convert it to its hexadecimal public key using online Nostr utilities or compatible wallet applications.

Example:

npub1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
        ↓
4f2b0c7d8e8e4e5f9b8b3b4d5d3e1f9d5c6f7a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f9012

Your final value should look like:

RELAY_OWNER_PUBKEY=4f2b0c7d8e8e4e5f9b8b3b4d5d3e1f9d5c6f7a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f9012

Deployment Dependencies

Before deploying, prepare the following:

A 64-character hexadecimal Nostr public key (not an npub value).
A Railway account.

The deployment automatically configures:

PostgreSQL connection
Redis connection
S3 bucket credentials
Media server
Relay URL
Database migrations
Authentication
Git storage
Relay membership

Implementation Details

This template deploys the official Buzz container image:

ghcr.io/block/buzz:latest

Only one environment variable requires user input:

RELAY_OWNER_PUBKEY=&lt;64-character hexadecimal public key&gt;

All remaining environment variables, secrets, database credentials, Redis connection, S3 configuration, relay identity, and URLs are generated automatically by Railway during deployment.

Notes

After deployment, opening the web interface will display:

This relay is empty

This is expected. Buzz starts with an empty relay and no repositories.

To begin using your relay:

Install the Buzz Desktop application.
Open your deployed relay from the web interface.
Clone or create a repository.
Push your first repository to the relay.

Once pushed, repositories will automatically appear in the web interface.

Why Deploy Buzz on Railway?

Railway is a singular platform to deploy your infrastructure stack. Railway will host your infrastructure so you don't have to deal with configuration, while allowing you to vertically and horizontally scale it.

By deploying Buzz on Railway, you are one step closer to supporting a complete full-stack application with minimal burden. Host your servers, databases, AI agents, and more on Railway.