---
title: "Deploy Discourse"
description: "Open source discussion forum for online communities"
category: "CMS"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/discourse-forum
---

# Deploy Discourse

Open source discussion forum for online communities

**[Deploy Discourse on Railway](https://railway.com/template/discourse-forum)**

- **Creator:** A3A
- **Category:** CMS
- **Total deploys:** 1

## Template content

### mailpit https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/mailpit.svg

- **Image:** axllent/mailpit:latest
- **Health check:** /livez
- **Public domain:** Yes

### Redis https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/redis.svg

- **Image:** redis:8.2
- **Start command:** `/bin/sh -c "rm -rf $RAILWAY_VOLUME_MOUNT_PATH/lost+found/ && exec docker-entrypoint.sh redis-server --requirepass $REDIS_PASSWORD --save 60 1 --dir $RAILWAY_VOLUME_MOUNT_PATH"`

### Postgres https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/postgresql.svg

- **Image:** ghcr.io/railwayapp-templates/postgres-ssl:18

### discourse https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/discourse.svg

- **Source:** https://github.com/gridalpha/discourse-railway
- **Health check:** /srv/status
- **Public domain:** Yes

## Documentation

# Deploy and Host Discourse on Railway

Discourse is the open-source discussion platform behind thousands of product forums and developer communities, including the official ones for Rust, Docker and Ubuntu. It is built for long-form conversation: infinite-scroll topics, trust levels that hand moderation powers to reliable members, a staff flag queue, full-text search, real-time chat, and email replies that post back into a thread. Self-host Discourse when you want a community you own outright.

Deploying Discourse normally means a Rails stack behind nginx with a background job runner, PostgreSQL and Redis. This template wires that up. The **discourse** service runs nginx in front of unicorn workers with Sidekiq inside the unicorn master, so web requests and background jobs share one container and one uploads volume. **Postgres** stores every topic, post and user. **Redis** backs the cache, the Sidekiq queues and the MessageBus channel that makes replies appear without a refresh. **Mailpit** captures outgoing mail privately, so signups and resets work immediately.

![Diagram of the Discourse, Postgres, Redis and Mailpit services on Railway](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1787366044/discourse-architecture.png)

## Getting Started with Discourse on Railway

The first boot runs migrations and precompiles assets before the site answers, so give it a few minutes. An administrator account is created from `ADMIN_EMAIL`, `ADMIN_USERNAME` and `ADMIN_PASSWORD` — set those before deploying, or read the generated password back from the service variables. Open the public URL, click **Log In** and sign in; there is no email confirmation to clear. Discourse greets a new administrator with a launch checklist. Click **New Topic**, pick **General** and post something — that proves the database, Redis and the uploads volume all work. Then open **Admin → Email settings → Server settings** and send a test email: it lands in the Mailpit inbox published alongside the forum, behind the credentials in `MP_UI_AUTH`. For real mail, point `DISCOURSE_SMTP_*` at Postmark, Resend or SES instead.

![Discourse latest topics list with the onboarding checklist](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1787366047/discourse-latest-topics.png)

![A Discourse topic thread with two replies in the General category](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1787366049/discourse-topic-thread.png)

![Discourse admin dashboard reporting version and community health](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1787366053/discourse-admin-dashboard.png)

## About Hosting Discourse

Discourse is a Rails application that expects PostgreSQL, Redis and an SMTP relay, plus storage for uploads and backups. Teams self-host it to keep member data in their own infrastructure and avoid per-seat pricing. Key features:

- Topic-centric discussion with infinite scroll, summaries and bookmarks
- Trust levels that promote reliable members automatically
- A staff review queue fed by user flags, spam heuristics and moderation rules
- Mailing-list mode: reply by email, and every notification threads correctly
- Real-time chat, categories, tags, groups and per-category permissions
- Themes, bundled plugins, a REST API, webhooks and SSO

The **discourse** service is the only one with a public domain: nginx serves assets and uploaded files directly and proxies the rest to unicorn. Sidekiq runs in that same container because Discourse's background jobs — image optimisation, thumbnails, backups — write to the uploads directory the web tier serves, so they share a filesystem. That directory is a volume at `/shared`, alongside backups and logs, and survives every redeploy. **Postgres** and **Redis** stay private; **Mailpit** publishes only its inbox UI, behind basic auth.

## Why Deploy Discourse on Railway

Railway removes the server administration self-hosted Discourse usually demands.

- PostgreSQL and Redis are provisioned and reachable over private networking
- TLS, a public domain and HTTP/2 are handled at the edge — no certificate renewals
- Uploads and backups persist on a managed volume across every deployment
- Working outbound mail is included, so signups and password resets work at once
- Scale CPU and memory from the dashboard

## Common Use Cases

- A product support and feature-request forum where customers help each other and staff triage flags in one queue
- A developer community around an open-source project, with a category per subsystem and email replies for maintainers
- A private members' community for a course or paid newsletter, using group permissions and invite-only signup

## Dependencies for Discourse

- **discourse** — [`gridalpha/discourse-railway`](https://github.com/gridalpha/discourse-railway) built on `discourse/discourse:2026.7.1`, upstream's own prebuilt image. nginx, unicorn and Sidekiq under runit.
- **Postgres** — Railway managed PostgreSQL 18. The schema needs the `vector`, `hstore` and `pg_trgm` extensions, all available here.
- **Redis** — Railway managed Redis 8. Cache, Sidekiq queues, rate limiting and MessageBus.
- **mailpit** — `axllent/mailpit:latest`. SMTP on private port 1025, inbox UI on 8025.

### Environment Variables Reference

| Variable | Purpose |
|---|---|
| `DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME` | Public hostname baked into every generated link |
| `DISCOURSE_DB_HOST` / `_NAME` / `_USERNAME` / `_PASSWORD` | PostgreSQL connection |
| `DISCOURSE_REDIS_HOST` / `_PORT` / `_PASSWORD` | Redis connection |
| `DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS` / `_PORT` | Outbound mail relay |
| `DISCOURSE_SECRET_KEY_BASE` | Session and token signing key; must stay stable |
| `DISCOURSE_FORCE_HTTPS` | Emit `https://` links and secure cookies behind the edge |
| `ADMIN_EMAIL` / `ADMIN_USERNAME` / `ADMIN_PASSWORD` | First administrator, created on first boot |
| `UNICORN_WORKERS` / `UNICORN_SIDEKIQS` | Web worker and background worker counts |

### Deployment Dependencies

- Source: [github.com/discourse/discourse](https://github.com/discourse/discourse) (GPL-2.0)
- Image: [hub.docker.com/r/discourse/discourse](https://hub.docker.com/r/discourse/discourse)
- Docs: [meta.discourse.org](https://meta.discourse.org)

## Hardware Requirements for Self-Hosting Discourse

| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 1 vCPU | 2–4 vCPU |
| RAM | 2 GB | 4 GB or more |
| Storage | 5 GB volume | 20 GB+ as uploads grow |
| Runtime | Ruby 3.4 / Rails 8 | Ruby 3.4 / Rails 8 |

Discourse's own guidance is 2 GB of RAM for a small community. Each unicorn worker holds its own copy of the application, so `UNICORN_WORKERS=3` plus one Sidekiq process suits 4 GB. Raise workers, not replicas.

## Self-Hosting Discourse

Discourse's supported installation builds its own image on the host with Docker, which is why this template uses `discourse/discourse` — upstream's prebuilt image, configured through environment variables. To run it locally, start PostgreSQL with pgvector and Redis:

```
docker network create discourse
docker run -d --name db --network discourse \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=discourse -e POSTGRES_USER=discourse \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=changeme pgvector/pgvector:pg18
docker run -d --name redis --network discourse redis:8-alpine
```

Then start the application itself, mounting a volume for uploads and backups:

```
docker run -d --name discourse --network discourse -p 8080:80 \
  -e DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME=forum.example.com \
  -e DISCOURSE_DB_HOST=db -e DISCOURSE_DB_NAME=discourse \
  -e DISCOURSE_DB_USERNAME=discourse -e DISCOURSE_DB_PASSWORD=changeme \
  -e DISCOURSE_REDIS_HOST=redis \
  -e DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS=smtp.example.com \
  -v discourse_shared:/shared discourse/discourse:2026.7.1
```

Prefer the release tag over `latest`, which tracks the development branch. Add a custom domain by attaching it in Railway and updating `DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME` to match.

## How Much Does Discourse Cost to Self-Host?

Discourse is free and open source under GPL-2.0, with no seat limits and no feature gating. The company sells managed hosting from a free tier up through roughly $20, $100 and $500 per month for larger communities. Self-hosting on Railway costs only infrastructure: the container, PostgreSQL, Redis, Mailpit and the volume.

## FAQ

**What is Discourse?**

Discourse is an open-source forum and community platform built with Ruby on Rails, providing topics and replies, trust levels, moderation tooling, real-time chat, full-text search and reply-by-email.

**What does this Railway template deploy?**

Four services: Discourse itself (nginx, unicorn and Sidekiq in one container with a volume at `/shared`), managed PostgreSQL, managed Redis, and Mailpit for outbound email. Only Discourse and the inbox get public URLs.

**Why does the template include PostgreSQL and Redis?**

Discourse stores all content in PostgreSQL and cannot run without it. Redis holds the cache, Sidekiq job queues, rate-limit counters and the MessageBus channels that push new posts to open tabs.

**How do I create the first admin account on self-hosted Discourse?**

The account is created on first boot from `ADMIN_EMAIL`, `ADMIN_USERNAME` and `ADMIN_PASSWORD`, active and ready to sign in. If an administrator already exists the step is skipped, so changing your password later is safe.

**Can I use my own SMTP provider instead of Mailpit?**

Yes. Point `DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS`, `DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT`, `DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME` and `DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD` at your provider and set `DISCOURSE_SMTP_ENABLE_START_TLS=true`.

**How do I install plugins and themes on self-hosted Discourse?**

Themes and theme components install from the admin interface with a Git URL and need no rebuild. Ruby plugins are compiled into the image, so add them to the source repository's Dockerfile and redeploy them.


## Similar templates

- [Libredesk - Complete Setup](https://railway.com/deploy/libredesk-complete-setup) — Complete self-hosted omnichannel customer support desk.
- [Paperless-ngx](https://railway.com/deploy/paperless-ngx-3) — Paperless-ngx — document management with OCR and full-text search
- [Instatic CMS - Postgres](https://railway.com/deploy/instatic-cms-postgres) — Design, build and manage powerful static sites from state-of-the-art CMS

Open this page in a browser: https://railway.com/deploy/discourse-forum