changedetection.io

Self-hosted web page change monitoring — get instant alerts when any website changes.

✨ Features

Real-time change detection — Monitor any web page for content, price, or structural changes
60+ notification channels — Discord, Email, Slack, Telegram, Webhook, Apprise, and more
AI-powered summaries — LLM integration (OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama, Anthropic) for smart diff summaries
Visual Selector — Point-and-click element targeting with browser fetcher
Browser Steps — Log in, fill forms, click buttons before detecting changes
Filter engine — XPath, CSS Selectors, JSONPath, jq, regex text filtering
Re-stock & Price detection — Monitor product pages for stock and price changes
API & RSS — Full REST API for watches and notifications
Screenshot diffs — Visual change comparison with screenshots
Scheduling — Timezone-aware recheck schedules with day-of-week and time limits

🚀 Deploy on Railway

One-Click Deploy

Click the button above to deploy changedetection.io instantly on Railway.

Prerequisites

A Railway account
No external database required — uses built-in SQLite storage

⚙️ Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Default	Description
`PORT`	No	`5000`	HTTP listen port (Railway sets this automatically)
`LOGGER_LEVEL`	No	`DEBUG`	Log level: `TRACE`, `DEBUG`, `INFO`, `SUCCESS`, `WARNING`, `ERROR`, `CRITICAL`
`BASE_URL`	No	—	Public URL of your instance (appears in notification alerts)
`USE_X_SETTINGS`	No	`1`	Set to `1` when behind Railway's reverse proxy
`HIDE_REFERER`	No	—	Hide Referer header from monitored websites
`FETCH_WORKERS`	No	`10`	Number of parallel fetch workers
`MINIMUM_SECONDS_RECHECK_TIME`	No	—	Minimum seconds between rechecks (`0` to disable)
`DISABLE_VERSION_CHECK`	No	—	Disable telemetry / version check
`LLM_FEATURES_DISABLED`	No	—	Disable all LLM / AI features
`ALLOW_FILE_URI`	No	—	Allow watching local `file:///` URIs (security!)
`TZ`	No	`UTC`	Timezone for scheduling (e.g., `America/New_York`)
`HTTP_PROXY`	No	—	HTTP proxy address for outgoing requests
`HTTPS_PROXY`	No	—	HTTPS proxy address for outgoing requests
`NO_PROXY`	No	—	Comma-separated proxy exclusion list
`SCREENSHOT_MAX_HEIGHT`	No	`16000`	Max screenshot height in pixels
`EXTRA_PACKAGES`	No	—	Space-separated extra Python packages to install (plugins)
`PLAYWRIGHT_DRIVER_URL`	No	—	WebSocket URL to a Playwright browser for JS-rendered pages

📡 Service Architecture

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     changedetection.io                            │
│                        Port 5000                                  │
│                                                                   │
│  ┌──────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐  ┌──────────────────────┐ │
│  │  Web UI      │  │  Change Engine   │  │  Notification Engine │ │
│  │  (Flask)     │  │  (Scheduler)     │  │  (Apprise)           │ │
│  │  /           │  │  Per-watch       │  │  60+ channels        │ │
│  │  Watches     │  │  polling         │  │  Discord, Email,     │ │
│  │  Settings    │  │  Content diff    │  │  Slack, Telegram     │ │
│  └──────┬───────┘  └────────┬─────────┘  └──────────┬───────────┘ │
│         │                   │                        │            │
│         └───────────────────┼────────────────────────┘            │
│                             │                                     │
│                    ┌────────▼────────┐                            │
│                    │  SQLite (/datastore)  │                      │
│                    │  Watches, config,    │                      │
│                    │  notification history │                     │
│                    └─────────────────────┘                       │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
        │                        │
        │                   ┌────▼────┐
        │                   │  HTTP   │
        │                   │ Fetcher │
        │                   │ (fast)  │
   ┌────▼────┐              └─────────┘
   │ Playwright │
   │  Browser  │
   │ (JS support)│
   └───────────┘

💻 Local Development

Prerequisites

Docker installed on your machine

Quick Start

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/INAPP-Mobile/railway-changedetection.io.git
cd railway-changedetection.io

# Build and run with Docker
docker build -t changedetection .
docker run -d \
  --name changedetection \
  -p 5000:5000 \
  -v changedetection-data:/datastore \
  changedetection

# Open in browser
open http://localhost:5000

Using Docker Compose

See the GitHub repo for docker-compose.yml examples.

For JavaScript-rendered pages, add a Playwright browser service (see repo for config).

🔧 Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Health check failing	Ensure `PORT` env var matches the container's listen port (5000). Check Railway logs for startup errors.
Data lost on restart	Data is stored in `/datastore` (SQLite). Railway provides ephemeral storage that persists within service lifecycles.
Slow first startup	The image is ~400MB. First cold start may take 1–2 minutes for the health check to pass.
Cannot access the UI	Make sure `USE_X_SETTINGS=1` is set when behind Railway's proxy. Railway provides TLS at the edge.
Monitored sites not checking	Verify `FETCH_WORKERS` is set appropriately (default 10). Check if sites have IP-based blocks on Railway egress IPs.
JS-rendered pages not detecting changes	Set up a Playwright browser service and configure `PLAYWRIGHT_DRIVER_URL`. The default HTTP fetcher doesn't execute JavaScript.
Notifications not sending	Verify notification URLs are correctly formatted in the watch settings. Check Apprise documentation for your channel.
Port conflict	Railway assigns `PORT` automatically. If you override it, ensure it matches the `EXPOSE 5000` in the Dockerfile.

📚 Resources

changedetection.io Documentation — Official tutorials and guides
GitHub Repository — Source code & issues
Installation Wiki — Advanced configuration
Notification Setup — Apprise notification channels
Chrome Extension — Quickly add pages to watch
Discord Community — Community discussions

📄 License

This template deploys changedetection.io, which is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See the LICENSE file for details.

_{Built by INAPP-Mobile — Deploy your own website change monitoring service in minutes.}

Deploy and Host

One-click deploy on Railway. Single container, built-in SQLite. TLS at edge, auto-restart.

About Hosting

Single container with SQLite. No external DB needed.

Why Deploy

One-click deploy, zero setup
Single container, no external DB
Auto HTTPS via Railway

Common Use Cases

Dependencies for

Changedetection.io uses SQLite — no external database required.

Deployment Dependencies

Changedetection.io uses SQLite — no external database required.