Deploy and Host Formbricks on Railway

Deploy Formbricks on Railway to self-host a privacy-first survey and experience management platform. Formbricks is an open-source alternative to Typeform, SurveyMonkey, and Qualtrics that gives you full control over your survey data with unlimited responses.

This Railway template pre-configures Formbricks with PostgreSQL (pgvector-enabled) for data storage and Redis for caching and rate limiting, giving you a production-ready survey platform in minutes.

Getting Started with Formbricks on Railway

After deployment completes, open your Railway-generated public URL. Formbricks redirects to the setup wizard at /setup/intro where you create your admin account and organization. No default credentials are used — you set your own email and password during first-time setup.

Once registered, create your first survey from the dashboard. Choose between link surveys (shareable URLs), website surveys (embedded via JavaScript snippet), or in-app surveys (integrated with your product via the Formbricks SDK). The survey builder offers 20+ question types including NPS, CES, CSAT, open text, and multi-choice with skip logic and conditional branching.

New user signups are disabled by default — additional team members join via invite links from the admin dashboard.

About Hosting Formbricks

Formbricks is an open-source experience management suite built on Next.js, designed for product teams that need granular control over user feedback collection. It handles the full survey lifecycle — creation, targeting, distribution, and analytics — in a single self-hosted platform.

• In-app surveys with precise user targeting based on attributes, events, and segments
• Website surveys embeddable via a lightweight JavaScript snippet
• Link surveys with custom branding and shareable URLs
• 20+ question types including NPS, CES, CSAT, matrix, ranking, and file upload
• Skip logic and conditional branching for dynamic survey flows
• Built-in analytics with response summaries, charts, and CSV/JSON export
• Webhooks and integrations with Slack, Notion, Google Sheets, Airtable, and Zapier
• Multi-language support for international survey distribution

The template deploys three services: Formbricks (Next.js app), PostgreSQL with pgvector for vector-enabled data storage, and Redis for caching and rate limiting.

Why Deploy Formbricks on Railway

• Unlimited survey responses with no per-response fees
• Full data ownership — survey data never leaves your infrastructure
• One-click deploy with PostgreSQL and Redis pre-configured
• Automatic HTTPS and custom domain support
• Scale resources independently per service

Common Use Cases for Self-Hosted Formbricks

• Product feedback loops — embed in-app NPS and feature satisfaction surveys triggered by specific user actions
• Customer research — distribute branded link surveys for user interviews, market research, and beta testing programs
• Employee engagement — run anonymous pulse surveys and eNPS tracking across distributed teams
• GDPR-compliant data collection — self-host in your own region to meet data residency and privacy requirements

Dependencies for Self-Hosted Formbricks

• Formbricks — ghcr.io/formbricks/formbricks:latest — Next.js survey application
• PostgreSQL — pgvector/pgvector:pg17 — database with vector extension support
• Redis — redis:8.2.1 (Railway-managed) — caching and rate limiting

Environment Variables Reference for Formbricks on Railway

Deployment Dependencies

• Runtime: Node.js 18+, Next.js 16
• Docker Hub: formbricks/formbricks (archived — now on GHCR)
• GitHub: formbricks/formbricks — 13k+ stars
• Docs: formbricks.com/docs/self-hosting

Hardware Requirements for Self-Hosting Formbricks

Self-Hosting Formbricks with Docker

Pull the official image from GitHub Container Registry:

docker pull ghcr.io/formbricks/formbricks:latest

Run Formbricks with Docker Compose using the official configuration:

services:
  postgres:
    image: pgvector/pgvector:pg17
    volumes:
      - postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: your-secure-password
      POSTGRES_DB: formbricks

  redis:
    image: valkey/valkey:latest
    command: valkey-server --appendonly yes
    volumes:
      - redis:/data

  formbricks:
    image: ghcr.io/formbricks/formbricks:latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      WEBAPP_URL: https://your-domain.com
      NEXTAUTH_URL: https://your-domain.com
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://postgres:your-secure-password@postgres:5432/formbricks?schema=public
      NEXTAUTH_SECRET: your-nextauth-secret
      ENCRYPTION_KEY: your-encryption-key
      CRON_SECRET: your-cron-secret
      REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379
    depends_on:
      - postgres
      - redis

volumes:
  postgres:
  redis:

Generate secrets with openssl rand -hex 32 for NEXTAUTH_SECRET, ENCRYPTION_KEY, and CRON_SECRET.

How Much Does Formbricks Cost to Self-Host?

Formbricks is open-source under AGPLv3 with unlimited responses when self-hosted — no per-response fees or usage caps. The cloud version offers a free tier with 250 responses/month and paid plans starting at $30/month. Enterprise features (SSO, role management, advanced targeting) require a separate license key. On Railway, your only cost is infrastructure — typically $5–15/month for a small to medium survey deployment.

Formbricks vs Typeform

Formbricks is purpose-built for product teams needing in-app feedback with precise user targeting. Typeform excels at standalone conversational forms with high completion rates but lacks self-hosting and charges per response.

FAQ

What is Formbricks and why should you self-host it? Formbricks is an open-source experience management platform for creating surveys, collecting feedback, and analyzing responses. Self-hosting gives you unlimited responses, full data ownership, and compliance with data residency requirements like GDPR — all without per-response fees.

What does this Railway template deploy for Formbricks? This template deploys three services: the Formbricks Next.js application (ghcr.io/formbricks/formbricks:latest), PostgreSQL with pgvector extension (pgvector/pgvector:pg17) for data storage, and Railway-managed Redis for caching and rate limiting. All services are pre-configured to communicate over Railway's private network.

Why does Formbricks need PostgreSQL with pgvector on Railway? Formbricks requires the pgvector extension for vector similarity search, which powers upcoming AI-driven features including intelligent survey analysis and response clustering. Standard PostgreSQL without pgvector will fail during database migrations.

How do I embed Formbricks surveys in my website or app? After creating a survey in the dashboard, go to the survey settings and choose your distribution channel. For website surveys, copy the JavaScript snippet and add it to your site's `` tag. For in-app surveys, install the Formbricks SDK (@formbricks/js) and initialize it with your environment ID and API host URL pointing to your Railway deployment.

Can I use Formbricks for NPS and customer satisfaction surveys? Yes. Formbricks includes dedicated NPS (Net Promoter Score), CSAT (Customer Satisfaction), and CES (Customer Effort Score) question types with built-in analytics dashboards that calculate scores automatically and track trends over time.

How do I enable email notifications in self-hosted Formbricks on Railway? Set the SMTP environment variables (SMTP_HOST, SMTP_PORT, SMTP_USER, SMTP_PASSWORD, MAIL_FROM) in the Formbricks service on Railway. Without SMTP configured, email verification and password reset are disabled by default — the template ships with EMAIL_VERIFICATION_DISABLED=1 and PASSWORD_RESET_DISABLED=1.