Deploy Dendrite

Deploy and Host

Dendrite is a second-generation Matrix homeserver written in Go — a lightweight, single-process alternative to Synapse for running your own private Matrix server. Deploy it on Railway in one click: one service, embedded SQLite, no companion databases, all state on a single persistent volume. Point any Matrix client (Element Web, Element Desktop, FluffyChat, Nheko, Fractal) at your Railway URL and sign in as the admin account created on first boot.

About Hosting

Hosting Dendrite on Railway means the server runs as a single Go process on Railway's infrastructure, with its SQLite databases, media uploads, and embedded NATS JetStream state on a persistent volume. There are no companion services to babysit: no Postgres to tune, no Redis to feed, no workers to scale. The wrapper generates Dendrite's config on every boot from the running image's own defaults, pins the Matrix server name and signing key from first boot, and creates the admin account automatically. Railway terminates TLS at the edge, and Dendrite's plain HTTP listener serves the full API — including federation routes — so a custom domain with a .well-known delegation can federate with the wider Matrix network.

Why Deploy

• Your own homeserver, not someone else's account. Messages live in your SQLite databases on your volume — no third-party server, no phone number, no matrix.org account required.
• Lightweight by design. One Go binary, ~60 MB image, SQLite instead of Postgres, no Redis, no workers. It fits Railway's smallest tiers for a private server and idles cheaply.
• Real Matrix, not a toy. Full client-server API: rooms, direct messages, end-to-end encryption, media uploads, spaces, threads. Any spec-compliant client works against it.
• Federation-ready (with one manual step). Outbound federation works out of the box; inbound federation needs a custom domain whose .well-known/matrix/server points at this deployment's domain:443.

Common Use Cases

• A private family or team chat server that nobody else operates.
• A self-hosted backend for a community that wants Matrix without running Synapse + Postgres.
• A personal homeserver for bridging experiments and bots.
• A quiet corner of the federation: join rooms on other servers from your own domain once federation is delegated.

Dependencies for

Dendrite on Railway depends on one persistent volume and a public domain. Everything else — config generation, signing keys, admin account creation, healthchecks — is handled by the wrapper at boot.

Deployment Dependencies

• Railway plan with persistent volumes (any paid tier; a private server idles on a fraction of a vCPU and a few hundred MB of RAM — media uploads and large rooms grow the volume, not the RAM).
• One volume (dendrite-data, mounted at /data). No databases, no Redis, no workers.
• A public domain (Railway-provided is fine) so clients can reach it and server_name has a stable value at first boot.

Configuration

Upstream settings baked into the generated config: SQLite databases per component under /data/dendrite_*.db, media under /data/media, embedded NATS JetStream under /data, search index under /data/searchindex, logs to stdout, healthcheck GET /_matrix/client/versions, registration disabled, federation enabled.

Honest limitations

• One admin account, no open registration. Dendrite refuses to start with open registration and no captcha, and its open-registration flag is code-only (not settable from a config file). Additional local accounts need Dendrite's create-account tool, which requires container access Railway does not offer.
• server_name is forever. Pinned at first boot from RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN; changing domains later does not change user IDs. To change it, delete the volume and redeploy fresh.
• Backups are your volume. Everything lives in /data with no automatic off-site backup in this template.