---
title: "Deploy GrowthBook"
description: "Feature flags, experimentation, product analytics, SDK edge proxy"
category: "Analytics"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/growthbook-analytics
---

# Deploy GrowthBook

Feature flags, experimentation, product analytics, SDK edge proxy

**[Deploy GrowthBook on Railway](https://railway.com/template/growthbook-analytics)**

- **Creator:** A3A
- **Category:** Analytics

## Template content

### growthbook-proxy https://raw.githubusercontent.com/growthbook/growthbook/main/docs/static/img/growthbook-logomark-white.svg

- **Image:** growthbook/proxy:latest
- **Health check:** /healthcheck
- **Public domain:** Yes

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

- **Image:** mongo:8.0
- **Start command:** `docker-entrypoint.sh mongod --ipv6 --bind_ip ::,0.0.0.0 --setParameter diagnosticDataCollectionEnabled=false`

### 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"`

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

- **Source:** https://github.com/gridalpha/growthbook-railway
- **Health check:** /healthz
- **Public domain:** Yes

### growthbook https://raw.githubusercontent.com/growthbook/growthbook/main/docs/static/img/growthbook-logomark-white.svg

- **Image:** growthbook/growthbook:5.0.1
- **Health check:** /api/init

### growthbook-jobs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/growthbook/growthbook/main/docs/static/img/growthbook-logomark-white.svg

- **Image:** growthbook/growthbook:5.0.1
- **Health check:** /api/init

## Buckets

- **growthbook-uploads**

## Documentation

![GrowthBook logo](https://cdn.growthbook.io/growthbook-logo@2x.png)

# Deploy and Host GrowthBook on Railway

GrowthBook is an open-source feature flagging and A/B testing platform. Product and engineering teams use it to ship code behind flags, roll changes out to a percentage of users, and measure the result against metrics defined in their own data warehouse — instead of paying per seat for a tool that keeps the numbers elsewhere. It ships 24 SDKs, a stats engine with CUPED, sequential testing and Bayesian analysis, and a product-analytics suite. Every query runs against your warehouse, so it never needs a copy of your event data.

This template runs the whole platform, not just the app container. Deploy GrowthBook on Railway and you get the web app and API, a jobs server owning scheduled work and the Python stats engine, a GrowthBook Proxy with a Redis cache serving SDK payloads, MongoDB for application state, and object storage for uploads. A Caddy gateway sits in front so the front-end and API share one origin, which is what keeps authentication working on a Railway domain. The only thing left to bring is a warehouse connection.

![Railway diagram of six GrowthBook services and datastores](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1788285344/growthbook-architecture.png)

## Getting Started with GrowthBook on Railway

Open the `gateway` service's public URL as soon as the deployment goes green. There are no default credentials: the first visitor gets a one-time setup form asking for a company name, your name, an email and a password, and that account becomes the organization's super admin. Everyone joining later needs an invitation from Settings → Members, so finish this step promptly rather than leaving it exposed. Next, open SDK Configuration → SDK Connections and create a connection for your language; the page shows the client key and the snippet to paste into your app. Then go to Features → Add Feature, give the flag a key such as `new-checkout-banner`, pick a value type and add a rule — a percentage rollout sampled by user ID shows targeting working. To confirm the deployment end to end, run `curl https:///api/features/`; it should return the flag within a second of saving it. Connect a warehouse under Metrics and Data → Data Sources when you are ready to analyse experiments.

![GrowthBook feature flag list with three live flags](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1788285346/growthbook-feature-flags.png)

![Feature flag serving a 35 percent gradual rollout rule](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1788285348/growthbook-rollout-rule.png)

![SDK connection routed through the GrowthBook Proxy](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1788285349/growthbook-sdk-proxy.png)

## About Hosting GrowthBook

Feature flagging and experimentation are usually sold as two products, both charging by seat or tracked user. GrowthBook merges them and inverts the data model: flags are evaluated in your application by an SDK, and experiment results come from SQL run against the warehouse you already own. Self-hosting suits teams with data-residency rules or user counts that make per-MTU pricing painful.

Key features:

- Targeting attributes, saved groups, prerequisites and percentage rollouts per environment
- Bayesian and frequentist analysis, CUPED, sequential testing, bandits and SRM checks
- Warehouse-native metrics as SQL or fact tables, with caching and scheduled refreshes
- Product analytics: funnels, dashboards, saved SQL reports and correlations
- A REST API, webhooks, an MCP server and importers for LaunchDarkly and Statsig

The architecture splits cleanly. `growthbook` answers browser and SDK requests. `growthbook-jobs` runs the background job queue, scheduled refreshes and the Python stats engine, so a heavy analysis never slows the dashboard. `growthbook-proxy` caches payloads in Redis and pushes updates over Server-Sent Events, so flag changes reach clients in real time. MongoDB holds all application state and the bucket holds uploaded images, which keeps every app container stateless.

## Why Deploy GrowthBook on Railway

Railway turns a five-container topology into one click.

- MongoDB, Redis and object storage are provisioned and wired up for you
- The jobs server and proxy scale independently of the web tier
- Private networking keeps the API, stats endpoint and datastores off the internet
- Secrets, health checks and a public domain are set at deploy time
- Usage-based pricing, no per-seat fee on top of GrowthBook's own

## Common Use Cases

- Rolling a change out to 5% of users, watching guardrails, then ramping to 100% with no redeploy
- Running pricing or onboarding experiments and reading results from the company warehouse
- Replacing a per-seat LaunchDarkly or Statsig plan for a team already paying for Snowflake
- Serving flag payloads to millions of clients from a cached proxy, not the app database

## Dependencies for GrowthBook

- `growthbook/growthbook:5.0.1` — web app, REST API and stats engine, deployed twice: request tier and jobs server
- `growthbook/proxy:latest` — the [GrowthBook Proxy](https://github.com/growthbook/growthbook-proxy), a caching edge for SDK payloads
- `gridalpha/growthbook-railway` — the Caddy gateway serving both halves from one origin
- MongoDB 8 for state, Redis 8 for the proxy cache, a bucket for uploads

### Environment Variables Reference

| Variable | Service | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| `MONGODB_URI` | app, jobs | MongoDB connection string, with `?authSource=admin` |
| `APP_ORIGIN` / `API_HOST` | app, jobs | Public URLs; the API sits under the `/gbapi` path |
| `JWT_SECRET` / `ENCRYPTION_KEY` | app, jobs | Session signing and data-source encryption; must match |
| `BACKEND_PORT` | app, jobs | Keeps the API off the front-end's `PORT` |
| `CRON_DISABLED` / `PYTHON_SERVER_MODE` | app / jobs | Move scheduled work and `/stats` to the jobs server |
| `SECRET_API_KEY` | app, jobs, proxy | Read-only REST key the proxy uses |
| `UPLOAD_METHOD` / `S3_*` | app, jobs | Sends uploads to the bucket |

### Deployment Dependencies

- [GrowthBook on GitHub](https://github.com/growthbook/growthbook) — MIT, with `enterprise` directories under a commercial licence
- [growthbook/growthbook on Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/r/growthbook/growthbook)
- [Self-hosting docs](https://docs.growthbook.io/self-host) and the [variable reference](https://docs.growthbook.io/self-host/env)

## Hardware Requirements for Self-Hosting GrowthBook

| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 1 vCPU per app service | 2 vCPU app, 2–4 jobs server |
| RAM | 2 GB per app service | 4 GB each; the stats engine is hungriest |
| Storage | 512 MB MongoDB | 5 GB for ~1,000 flags and experiments |
| Runtime | Node.js 24 + Python 3.11 | Bundled in the official image |

## Self-Hosting GrowthBook with Docker

Upstream ships a Compose file bringing up MongoDB and the app together:

```
services:
  mongo:
    image: mongo:latest
    environment: [MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME=root, MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD=pw]
    volumes: [mongodata:/data/db]
  growthbook:
    image: growthbook/growthbook:latest
    ports: ["3000:3000", "3100:3100"]
    environment:
      - MONGODB_URI=mongodb://root:pw@mongo:27017/growthbook?authSource=admin
volumes:
  mongodata:
```

Run `docker compose up -d` and open `localhost:3000`. Against an existing MongoDB:

```
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 -p 3100:3100 \
  -e MONGODB_URI="mongodb://user:pw@host:27017/growthbook?authSource=admin" \
  -e APP_ORIGIN="https://gb.example.com" -e API_HOST="https://gb-api.example.com" \
  -e JWT_SECRET="$(openssl rand -hex 32)" \
  -e ENCRYPTION_KEY="$(openssl rand -hex 32)" \
  -e NODE_ENV=production growthbook/growthbook:latest
```

The front-end and API must share a registrable domain, or browsers drop the session cookie. This template puts both behind one hostname instead.

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

GrowthBook's core is MIT licensed and free to self-host with unlimited flags, experiments and traffic. Only the `enterprise` directories — SSO, SCIM, custom environments, approval workflows and the visual editor — need a commercial licence key. GrowthBook Cloud is free for three users and $40 per seat per month on Pro, so a team of ten saves roughly $4,800 a year by self-hosting. On Railway you pay only for the resources the services use.

## FAQ

**What is GrowthBook?**

GrowthBook is an open-source platform for feature flags, A/B testing and product analytics. Flags are evaluated in your application by an SDK, and experiment results come from SQL run against your own data warehouse.

**What does this Railway template deploy?**

Six services — the GrowthBook app, a jobs server running scheduled work and the stats engine, the Proxy, a Caddy gateway, MongoDB and Redis — plus a bucket for uploads.

**Why does this template need MongoDB and Redis?**

MongoDB is GrowthBook's only application database — organizations, users, flags, experiments and cached query results live there. Redis is the proxy's shared cache, so several proxy instances serve identical payloads and stay in sync when a flag changes.

**Do I need a data warehouse to use self-hosted GrowthBook?**

Not for feature flags, which work right after setup. Experiment analysis does: connect BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks, ClickHouse, Postgres or MySQL under Metrics and Data → Data Sources.

**How do I add teammates to a self-hosted GrowthBook instance?**

Invite them from Settings → Members. Invitations are emailed, so set `EMAIL_ENABLED=true` plus `EMAIL_HOST`, `EMAIL_PORT`, `EMAIL_HOST_USER`, `EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD` and `EMAIL_FROM` first; without SMTP, copy the invite link from the members list.


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