Deploy and Host Diskus on Railway

Diskus is a lightweight, self-hosted commenting platform featuring a ~2KB embed script, native Shadow DOM CSS isolation, multi-site management, spam protection, and complete data ownership. Built with Bun, Hono, and Preact, Diskus offers a modern alternative to Disqus without ads, trackers, or performance overhead.

About Hosting Diskus

Hosting Diskus on Railway gives you a complete commenting platform that you fully control. The deployment includes a backend API, an administrative dashboard, and a lightweight embeddable widget that can be integrated into blogs, documentation sites, portfolios, company websites, and web applications.

Unlike traditional commenting services that rely on heavy client-side scripts and third-party tracking, Diskus focuses on privacy, performance, and simplicity. The widget runs inside a native Shadow DOM for complete CSS isolation while maintaining a tiny footprint that minimizes impact on Core Web Vitals. Railway handles the infrastructure, allowing you to deploy, scale, and manage Diskus without worrying about server administration.

Common Use Cases

• Add a fast, self-hosted commenting system to blogs, documentation websites, and personal sites.
• Manage comments across multiple websites from a single centralized dashboard.
• Replace third-party commenting platforms with a privacy-focused solution that gives you full ownership of your data.

Dependencies for Diskus Hosting

• Persistent storage for the SQLite database.
• Environment variables for application configuration and authentication secrets.

Deployment Dependencies

• Bun Runtime: https://bun.sh
• Railway: https://railway.com
• Resend (optional for email notifications): https://resend.com

Implementation Details

The Railway template deploys the following services:

• Backend API — Handles authentication, websites, comments, moderation, and user management.
• Dashboard — Administrative interface for managing websites, users, and comments.
• Widget — Lightweight embeddable commenting widget with native Shadow DOM isolation.

Example embed snippet:

<div id="diskus-thread" data-app-id="YOUR_APP_ID" data-thread-key="your-page-slug" data-api-url="https://your-api-domain.com/api/v1">
</div>

Why Deploy Diskus 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 Diskus 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.