---
title: "Deploy HumHub"
description: "Social network and intranet with spaces, streams and modules"
category: "Other"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/humhub
---

# Deploy HumHub

Social network and intranet with spaces, streams and modules

**[Deploy HumHub on Railway](https://railway.com/template/humhub)**

Machine-readable deploy manifest (JSON, validated by TemplateCI): https://railway.com/deploy/humhub/manifest.json

- **Creator:** A3A
- **Category:** Other
- **Total deploys:** 1

## Template content

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

- **Image:** axllent/mailpit:latest
- **Health check:** /livez
- **Public domain:** Yes

### MySQL https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/mysql.svg

- **Image:** mysql:9.4
- **Start command:** `docker-entrypoint.sh mysqld --innodb-use-native-aio=0 --disable-log-bin --performance_schema=0 --innodb-buffer-pool-size=1G`

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

- **Source:** https://github.com/gridalpha/humhub-railway
- **Health check:** /user/auth/login
- **Public domain:** Yes

## Documentation

# Deploy and Host HumHub on Railway

HumHub is an open-source social network and intranet platform. It gives a company, an association or a community the familiar shape of a social app — a dashboard stream, topic-based Spaces, posts, comments, mentions, notifications and file sharing — on infrastructure you own, under an AGPL licence, with a marketplace of modules adding a wiki, calendar, tasks and single sign-on. Teams self-host HumHub when member data cannot sit in someone else's tenant, or when they want a members' area that behaves like a social network, not a forum.

This template runs the official HumHub container with everything wired up. The `humhub` service is the web tier, cron scheduler and two queue workers in one container, as the project packages it for production. `MySQL` holds every row — content, users, the job queue, the lock table. `mailpit` is a private SMTP server capturing the invitations, password resets and digests HumHub sends, so email works from the first minute and can point at a real relay later. Uploads, assets and modules live on a persistent volume.

![Diagram of the HumHub, MySQL and Mailpit services on Railway](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1789289636/humhub-architecture.webp)

## Getting Started with HumHub on Railway

Set `HUMHUB_ADMIN_PASSWORD` before deploying — the first administrator's password, read once while the database is created; everything else has a working default. When the deployment goes green, open the public URL and sign in as `admin`. There is no setup wizard to race: the installation finishes before the web server accepts its first request. Go first to **Administration → Users → Settings**, where anonymous registration is off by default: turn it on for an open community, or leave it closed and invite people by email. Then create a Space — a room with its own stream, members and modules, where nearly all content lives. Post to it, add a comment, then open **Administration → Information → Prerequisites**: every row green confirms PHP, the database, file permissions and background jobs are healthy. **Administration → Settings → E-Mail** has a *Save & Test* button whose message lands in the Mailpit inbox.

![HumHub dashboard stream showing two space posts and a reply](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1789289639/humhub-dashboard.webp)
![Product Team space in HumHub with posts, a comment and member count](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1789289640/humhub-space-stream.webp)
![HumHub administration panel listing green server prerequisite checks](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1789289641/humhub-admin-prerequisites.webp)

## About Hosting HumHub

HumHub is a PHP application on the Yii 2 framework, maintained by HumHub GmbH & Co. KG in Germany. The Community Edition is complete software rather than a trial — AGPL-3.0-or-later, with the paid Professional Edition adding commercially licensed modules instead of unlocking the core. Self-hosting is the point for most adopters: GDPR-sensitive member data, or content that should not be one acquisition away from disappearing.

- **Spaces** — areas with their own stream, members, permissions and modules
- **Dashboard stream** — one feed of everything a user follows, with @mentions
- **Notifications** — in-app, real-time over server-sent events, plus digests
- **Files and search** — per-Space file areas and full-text search
- **Marketplace modules** — wiki, calendar, tasks, polls, LDAP and OAuth
- **Administration** — member vetting, groups, permissions and themes

`humhub` serves HTTP through FrankenPHP and, in the same container, runs the cron scheduler and two queue workers handling notifications, search indexing and scheduled publishing. `MySQL` is Railway's managed database, so backups and the Data panel come with it. `mailpit` accepts SMTP on the private network and keeps the messages for you to read.

## Why Deploy HumHub on Railway

Railway removes the parts of self-hosting that are not about your community:

- Database, mail and app tier deploy together, already connected
- The volume for uploads and modules is created for you
- TLS, a public domain and health checks come from the platform
- Scaling and metrics need no server access
- Upgrades are a redeploy; migrations run at boot

## Common Use Cases

- **Employee intranet** — announcements, department Spaces, calendar and wiki
- **Association or club** — a private network with invitation-only sign-up
- **Customer portal** — a branded space for releases and documentation

## Dependencies for HumHub

- **`humhub`** — built from [gridalpha/humhub-railway](https://github.com/gridalpha/humhub-railway), a thin layer over the official [`humhub/humhub:stable`](https://hub.docker.com/r/humhub/humhub) image that binds FrankenPHP to Railway's port, trusts the platform's proxy headers so sessions are secure, and installs HumHub non-interactively.
- **`MySQL`** — Railway's managed `mysql:9.4`, holding content, users, settings, the job queue and the mutex. No Redis is needed: queue, cache and locking all default to the database here.
- **`mailpit`** — [`axllent/mailpit`](https://hub.docker.com/r/axllent/mailpit): SMTP on 1025 inside the private network, web inbox on 8025.

### Environment Variables Reference

| Variable | Purpose |
|---|---|
| `HUMHUB_ADMIN_PASSWORD` | First administrator's password, read once at install |
| `HUMHUB_ENABLE_REGISTRATION` | `true` opens anonymous sign-up; off by default |
| `HUMHUB_BASE_URL` | Set only when you attach a custom domain |
| `HUMHUB_SMTP_HOST` / `HUMHUB_SMTP_PORT` | Mail server; points at Mailpit out of the box |
| `HUMHUB_SMTP_USERNAME` / `HUMHUB_SMTP_PASSWORD` | Credentials for a relay |
| `MP_UI_AUTH` | `user:password` guarding the Mailpit inbox |

### Deployment Dependencies

- Source: [gridalpha/humhub-railway](https://github.com/gridalpha/humhub-railway)
- Upstream: [humhub/humhub](https://github.com/humhub/humhub), [humhub/docker](https://github.com/humhub/docker), [docs.humhub.org](https://docs.humhub.org)
- Runtime: PHP 8.4 on FrankenPHP, MySQL 9.4

## Hardware Requirements for Self-Hosting HumHub

| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 1 vCPU | 2 vCPU |
| RAM | 1 GB | 2–4 GB |
| Storage | 5 GB volume | 20 GB+ for file sharing |
| Database | MySQL 5.7+ / MariaDB 10.1+ | MySQL 8 or 9 |
| Runtime | PHP 8.2+ | PHP 8.4 |

Memory is the binding constraint: each queue worker is a full PHP process, and resizing uploaded images is the heaviest routine work.

## Self-Hosting HumHub with Docker

The official image expects a MySQL-compatible database and one volume:

```
services:
  humhub:
    image: humhub/humhub:stable
    volumes: ["./humhub-data:/data"]
    environment:
      - SERVER_NAME=https://social.example.com
      - HUMHUB_CONFIG__COMPONENTS__DB__DSN=mysql:host=db;dbname=humhub
      - HUMHUB_CONFIG__COMPONENTS__DB__USERNAME=humhub
      - HUMHUB_CONFIG__COMPONENTS__DB__PASSWORD=change-me
  db:
    image: mariadb:11
    command: ["--collation-server=utf8mb4_unicode_ci"]
    volumes: ["./mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql"]
    environment: ["MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=change-me"]
```

Any setting in HumHub's config tree becomes an environment variable by joining the path with double underscores. The container's own CLI handles maintenance:

```
docker compose exec humhub /app/yii migrate/up --includeModuleMigrations=1
docker compose exec humhub /app/yii cron/run
```

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

The Community Edition is free and open source under AGPL-3.0-or-later, with no user cap and no feature gate. HumHub GmbH sells a Professional Edition subscription bundling commercially licensed modules and support, plus a managed cloud. On Railway you pay only for the compute, memory and storage the three services use, so a small intranet costs a few dollars a month.

## FAQ

**What is HumHub?**
An open-source social network and intranet platform written in PHP. It provides Spaces, activity streams, posts, comments, notifications and file sharing, extended through a marketplace of modules such as a wiki, calendar and task board.

**What does this Railway template deploy?**
Three services: the HumHub application (web server, cron scheduler and queue workers in one container with a persistent volume), a managed MySQL database, and a Mailpit SMTP server with a web inbox.

**Why does the template include a database and a mail server?**
HumHub stores all of its state in MySQL, its background job queue included, so the database is not optional. Mail is close to it: invitations and password resets go out by SMTP, and without a mail server a new member can never finish signing up. Mailpit makes those messages visible immediately; swap in a transactional provider when you go live.

**How do I log in to self-hosted HumHub for the first time?**
Sign in as `admin` with the value you set in `HUMHUB_ADMIN_PASSWORD`. That account is created during the first boot, before the site serves traffic, so the public URL never exposes an unclaimed setup screen.

**Can I install HumHub marketplace modules on Railway?**
Yes. Modules install from **Administration → Modules** onto the volume, so they survive redeploys. Wiki, calendar, tasks and polls are free; some others need a Professional Edition licence.

**How do I use my own SMTP provider or a custom domain?**
For mail, change `HUMHUB_SMTP_HOST`, `HUMHUB_SMTP_PORT` and the SMTP credentials on the `humhub` service, or edit the same fields under **Administration → Settings → E-Mail**, which is authoritative after the first boot. For a domain, attach it to the service and set `HUMHUB_BASE_URL` to the full `https://` address, so links in outgoing email point at the right host.


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