Deploy and Host Halo - Website Builder on Railway

Halo is a powerful, open-source website building platform that makes it easy to create and manage blogs, documentation sites, business websites, portfolios, and content-driven applications. Built with Java and Spring Boot, Halo provides a modern admin interface, a rich plugin and theme ecosystem, and supports PostgreSQL for reliable, production-ready deployments.

About Hosting Halo - Website Builder

Hosting Halo on Railway provides a simple and scalable way to deploy a production-ready content management system without managing server infrastructure. Railway handles application hosting, networking, persistent volumes, and PostgreSQL databases, allowing you to focus on building your website. A typical deployment consists of the official Halo Docker image, a PostgreSQL database for content storage, and a persistent volume for uploads, themes, plugins, and backups. Once deployed, you can connect a custom domain, enable HTTPS automatically, and scale your application as your website grows.

Demo Access

You can explore Halo before deploying your own instance using the official demo environment:

Website: https://demo.halocms.site
Admin Console: https://demo.halocms.site/console
Username: demo
Password: P@ssw0rd123..

Common Use Cases

Personal blogs, portfolios, and developer websites.
Company websites, documentation portals, and knowledge bases.
Content-driven websites with customizable themes, plugins, and integrated media management.

Dependencies for Halo - Website Builder Hosting

PostgreSQL database
Persistent storage (mounted to /root/.halo2) for uploads, themes, plugins, and backups

Deployment Dependencies

Official Website: https://www.halo.run
Documentation: https://docs.halo.run
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/halo-dev/halo
Docker Image: https://hub.docker.com/r/halohub/halo

Implementation Details

Example environment variables for Railway:

SPRING_R2DBC_URL=r2dbc:pool:postgresql://${PGHOST}:${PGPORT}/${PGDATABASE}
SPRING_R2DBC_USERNAME=${PGUSER}
SPRING_R2DBC_PASSWORD=${PGPASSWORD}
SPRING_SQL_INIT_PLATFORM=postgresql
PORT="8090"

Persistent storage should be mounted at:

/root/.halo2

The official Docker image used for deployment is:

halohub/halo:2.25

Why Deploy Halo - Website Builder 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 Halo - Website Builder 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.