Deploy ElectricSQL

Deploy and Host ElectricSQL on Railway

ElectricSQL is a Postgres sync engine. It reads your database's logical replication stream and serves any subset of it — a "shape" — over an ordinary, cacheable HTTP API, so browsers, mobile apps and edge workers hold a live local copy of exactly the rows they care about. Instead of writing polling loops, websocket fan-out and cache invalidation by hand, you point a client at a URL carrying a table name and a where clause, and Electric keeps it current. It is Apache-2.0 licensed, has over 10,000 GitHub stars, and is the sync layer behind TanStack DB.

Deploy ElectricSQL on Railway and you get three wired-up services: Postgres 18 started with logical replication enabled, the electricsql/electric sync service holding its shape logs on a volume, and an nginx caching proxy as the only public entry point. Requests hit the proxy, which caches immutable shape-log pages and collapses concurrent live subscriptions into one upstream request before forwarding to Electric over private networking. Self-hosting ElectricSQL elsewhere means configuring wal_level and standing up that cache yourself; here it is already done.

Getting Started with ElectricSQL on Railway

Electric has no web dashboard — it is an HTTP API, and the public URL Railway gives you is its root. Open https:///v1/health first: a healthy deployment answers {"status":"active"}, while {"status":"waiting"} means it is still connecting to Postgres. Every other request needs the ELECTRIC_SECRET the template generates, passed as a secret query parameter; without it the service answers 401, so the endpoint is never open. Copy that value from the electric service's variables.

The database ships with a small demo table called items, so your first request returns real data rather than an error. Fetch the whole table as a shape log:

curl "https:///v1/shape?table=items&offset=-1&secret="

You get a JSON array of log entries, each with a key, the row value and headers naming the operation. The response also carries electric-handle and electric-offset — pass those back with live=true to hold a long-poll open and receive changes as they commit. Add where and columns to sync only part of a table:

curl "https:///v1/shape?table=items&columns=id,title,status&where=status%20%3D%20%27todo%27&offset=-1&secret="

Once that works, connect a client with npm install @electric-sql/client, or @electric-sql/react for a useShape hook, pointing its url at your Railway domain. Then create your own tables in the Postgres service and drop items. Any table is syncable immediately — Electric adds it to its publication on the first shape request, with no registration step.

About Hosting ElectricSQL

Electric solves the hardest part of real-time and local-first applications: getting a correct, resumable subset of a Postgres database into a client and keeping it there. It replaces neither your database nor your API — it sits beside them as a read path, and teams self-host it to keep that path on their own infrastructure rather than routing customer data through a third party.

• Partial replication through shapes: a table, a where clause and a column list
• A plain HTTP API — no custom protocol, no websocket server to operate
• Resumable, append-only logs that survive client restarts and network loss
• Built for CDN and proxy caching, so repeat syncs never touch Postgres
• Reads only: writes go through your own API, so your auth rules stay put

The deployment splits into three roles. Postgres owns every durable byte and runs with wal_level=logical. electric connects over a replication slot, keeps its shape logs on a 5 GB volume, and serves the API privately on port 3000. cache is nginx with proxy_cache and proxy_cache_lock, the only service with a public domain; its request collapsing lets subscribers share one upstream long-poll.

Why Deploy ElectricSQL on Railway

Railway removes the setup between you and a working sync engine.

• Logical replication configured before first boot — no manual wal_level change
• The caching proxy Electric's docs recommend, already wired up
• Private networking keeps Postgres and the sync service off the public internet
• Persistent volumes for the database and the shape logs
• Scale CPU, memory and storage without redeploying

Common Use Cases for Self-Hosted ElectricSQL

• Local-first apps that keep a working copy of user data in the browser
• Live dashboards and collaborative UIs, replacing polling with a change stream
• Syncing reference data — pricing, feature flags, catalogues — into edge workers
• Multi-tenant SaaS where each client syncs only the rows its where clause matches

Dependencies for ElectricSQL on Railway

• electricsql/electric:latest — the sync service, an Elixir release serving the shape API
• ghcr.io/railwayapp-templates/postgres-ssl:18 — Postgres 18 with logical replication
• nginx:1-alpine — the caching proxy in front of Electric

Environment Variables Reference

Deployment Dependencies

• GitHub: electric-sql/electric
• Docker Hub: electricsql/electric
• Docs: electric.ax/docs
• Source repository: gridalpha/electricsql-railway

Hardware Requirements for Self-Hosting ElectricSQL

Electric is disk-first: shape logs are written and re-read constantly, so storage speed matters more than cores do.

Postgres needs its own headroom, and each active shape keeps a log on disk — raise the Electric volume before shape count grows.

Self-Hosting ElectricSQL with Docker

Electric needs a Postgres with wal_level=logical and a role carrying the REPLICATION attribute. Start the database with that setting on the command line:

docker run -d --name pg -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=pw postgres:18 \
  postgres -c wal_level=logical -c max_wal_senders=10 -c max_replication_slots=10

Then run the sync service against it, giving it a directory to keep shape logs in:

docker run -d --name electric -p 3000:3000 \
  -e DATABASE_URL="postgresql://postgres:pw@pg:5432/postgres?sslmode=disable" \
  -e ELECTRIC_SECRET="a-long-random-string" \
  -e ELECTRIC_STORAGE_DIR=/data/electric \
  -v electric-data:/data electricsql/electric:latest

Electric creates the publication and replication slot itself on first connection. In production, put a caching proxy or CDN in front of port 3000.

How Much Does ElectricSQL Cost to Self-Host?

The sync service is open source under Apache-2.0, with no paid tier, seat limit or feature gate in the self-hosted build. The company behind it sells Electric Cloud, a managed version, but nothing here depends on it. On Railway you pay only for the compute, memory and storage the three services use.

FAQ

What is ElectricSQL? A Postgres sync engine that turns logical replication into a cacheable HTTP API, so clients subscribe to a filtered subset of your database and keep it current.

What does this Railway template deploy? Three services: Postgres 18 with logical replication enabled, the Electric sync service on a persistent volume, and an nginx caching proxy fronting the API publicly.

Why does the template include Postgres instead of my existing database? Electric requires wal_level=logical, which most managed Postgres instances do not enable by default. The bundled database has it set from first boot. Point DATABASE_URL at your own Postgres if it already meets that requirement.

Why is there a caching proxy in front of ElectricSQL? Shape-log pages below the current offset never change, so they cache indefinitely, and the proxy collapses concurrent live subscriptions into one upstream request. Electric's docs treat a cache as part of a production deployment, not an optimisation.

How do I secure my self-hosted ElectricSQL endpoint? Every request must carry the generated ELECTRIC_SECRET. For end-user traffic, keep it server-side and proxy shape requests through your own API, applying per-user authorisation before forwarding.

Can ElectricSQL write back to Postgres? No — Electric is a read path only. Writes go through your existing API or database connection, and the change comes back to clients through the shape log.