Deploy Castopod

Castopod

Self-hosted podcast hosting platform for creators who want to own their data. Upload episodes, manage your show notes, publish to the Fediverse, and get analytics — no ad trackers, no SaaS lock-in.

Two services: Castopod (web app) + MariaDB (database).

Deploy and Host

Host your own Castopod on Railway. This template provisions the all-in-one Castopod container (FrankenPHP + Caddy + s6-overlay under the hood) and a MariaDB companion for persistence. Podcast audio/artwork and app state persist in a Railway volume at /app/public/media.

Why Deploy

Castopod is the open-source backend that powers the Castopod service used by podcasters. Running it on Railway gives you a durable, auto-updating, globally reachable instance with:

• Full data ownership — audio, artwork, and DB live on your Railway volume.
• ActivityPub fediverse support — engage with the fediverse from your own instance.
• REST API — publish episodes programmatically (see the Castopod plugin ecosystem).
• Two-factor auth — optional TOTP (toggle per instance).
• No ad stack — plain self-hosted software, your analytics.

Common Use Cases

• Solo podcasters who want to move away from SaaS and own their episode archive
• Fediverse-engaged shows — republish to the fediverse from one control panel
• API-first producers — drive uploads from your editor or a custom pipeline
• Community hosts — offer your members a private Castopod instance

Deployment Dependencies

The deploy form pre-fills all companion variables (DB host / name / user / password are wired to the MariaDB service via private-domain references — nothing to type).

After the first successful deploy:

1. Open https:///cp-install — the setup wizard ("Create your Super Admin")
2. Set your admin email and password — you become the first (and by default the only) admin user
3. The same site is now both your admin dashboard and your public player — there is no separate admin panel

No OAuth app, no external service, no key-pair registration — the app ships with what it needs.

Architecture

• Castopod (all-in-one) — runs FrankenPHP + Caddy under s6-overlay. Three s6 services: bootstrap (renders /app/.env from the CP_* variables and runs migrations), frankenphp (serves the web app on :8080, health at /health), and supercronic (cron for background jobs incl. queue drain). Persists to /app/public/media.
• MariaDB 12.1 — database companion. Persists to /var/lib/mysql (volume). Castopod connects over the Railway private network using the companion-mapping references.

Redis is not required — Castopod defaults to file cache and the supercronic service handles periodic jobs. To add Redis later, deploy a separate Redis service and set CP_REDIS_HOST / CP_REDIS_PASSWORD.

Features

• Episode & person management — upload, edit, publish, unpublish, and reorder episodes
• REST API v1 — drive Castopod from scripts or editors
• ActivityPub — native fediverse engagement (needs TLS — Railway provides it)
• Two-factor authentication — TOTP, enabled by default
• Web dashboard — plain PHP/CodeIgniter stack, no build step
• Analytics — episode plays, uniques, geo distribution (opt in with CP_ANALYTICS_SALT)
• Custom domain support — set CP_BASEURL to your custom domain after deploy

Dependencies for

This is a two-service template:

About Hosting

• Castopod service — web front-end on port 8080, health at /health. The s6 bootstrap one-shot runs php spark castopod:database-update (migrations) and php spark cache:clear before frankenphp starts. /app/public/media must be writable by the pod — running as root (uid 0) with the root-owned volume is the pattern that works on Railway.
• MariaDB service — :3306, CP_DATABASE_USERNAME/CP_DATABASE_PASSWORD credentials are injected by the template (wired to the MariaDB service's MYSQL_USER/MYSQL_PASSWORD). The mariadb image's own entrypoint handles volume-owning (no wrapper needed).

Volume sizing: For a personal show, a 20 GB Railway volume is plenty. For a multi-year archive, size to your expected audio size (roughly 45 MB/min for a 64 kbps stereo mp3, so a 1-hour episode is about 90 MB).

Configuration

All variables shown in the deploy form are pre-wired; the only two you may want to override are the DB credentials (already auto-generated) and the optional SMTP / media-domain block.

Quick Start

1. Deploy via the button above.
2. Wait ~90 seconds for both services to reach Running.
3. Open https:///cp-install and create your Super Admin (email + password).
4. Create your first podcast, upload your first episode, done.

How to Add Podcasts

The deployed site is the entire product — one URL serves three things:

• Public player — https:/// lists all podcasts with a built-in web player
• Admin dashboard — same site, sign in with your Super Admin credentials
• RSS feeds — each podcast exposes an RSS feed you can subscribe to in any podcast app (Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, etc.)

Adding content:

1. Sign in on the public site → Add a Podcast: name, author, description, cover art, slug (this slug becomes the @{podcastHandle} in all URLs)
2. Open that podcast → Add Episode: upload the audio file (MP3 recommended), set title/description/date → publish
3. Audio files are stored on the /app/public/media volume, so they survive redeploys
4. Each podcast's RSS feed is at https:///@{podcastHandle>/feed.xml — copy this URL into any podcast app (Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, etc.) to subscribe

Tip: use a strong password for the Super Admin account — it is the only credential for this instance and there is no recovery UI once set.

License

Castopod is open source under AGPL-3.0.