---
title: "Deploy IT Tools"
description: "A toolbox of 70+ small utilities for developers and IT work"
category: "Other"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/ittools
---

# Deploy IT Tools

A toolbox of 70+ small utilities for developers and IT work

**[Deploy IT Tools on Railway](https://railway.com/template/ittools)**

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

- **Creator:** A3A
- **Category:** Other

## Template content

### it-tools https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/it-tools-light.svg

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

## Documentation

![Diagram of the single IT Tools service on Railway](https://github.com/CorentinTh/it-tools)

# Deploy and Host IT Tools on Railway

IT Tools is a browser-based toolbox of about seventy small utilities developers and sysadmins reach for a dozen times a day: hashing and HMAC, JWT decoding, JSON/YAML/TOML/XML conversion, base64 encoding, UUID generation, cron building, chmod calculation, IPv4 subnetting, regex testing and QR codes. These are not hard to find — the trouble is that the free ones live on ad-funded sites you paste production secrets into. Every tool here runs in your own browser tab, so a JWT, an API key or a customer record pasted into it never leaves the machine.

Self-host IT Tools on Railway and that privacy property becomes something you can point at. This template deploys one service, **it-tools**, built from [gridalpha/it-tools-railway](https://github.com/gridalpha/it-tools-railway) on top of the official `corentinth/it-tools` image. A visitor's request hits Railway's edge, terminates TLS there and reaches an nginx tuned for this platform: it compresses the bundle, caches content-hashed assets for a year, serves the single-page app's client-side routes and answers a real health probe. There is no database, queue or volume, and no outbound network call — once the JavaScript has loaded, the server plays no part in any tool you use.

![Diagram of the single IT Tools service on Railway](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1788738891/it-tools-architecture.png)

## Getting Started with IT Tools on Railway

Click Deploy, wait for the build, then open the generated `*.up.railway.app` URL. There are no accounts, no setup wizard and no default credentials to change, so the first screen is the finished product: a searchable grid of every tool, grouped into Crypto, Converter, Web, Development, Network, Math and Text. Press `Cmd/Ctrl + K` to jump to a tool by name, and click the heart on a card to pin it to the sidebar — favourites, language and the light/dark preference live in each visitor's browser storage, not on the server.

To confirm the deployment is healthy, open **Hash text**, paste a sentence, and watch MD5, SHA1, SHA256 and RIPEMD160 fill in as you type; that exercises the bundle, the router and the client-side crypto at once. Two more quick checks: **Math evaluator** (`sqrt(144) + 3^4 * 2` should give `174`) proves the tools that compile expressions at runtime work under the strict Content-Security-Policy this template ships, and **QR Code generator** proves image rendering. To make the instance private, set `BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME` and `BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD` and redeploy: the site then sits behind HTTP basic auth while `/healthz` stays open so Railway can still tell whether it is up.

![IT Tools home page listing every developer utility](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1788738893/it-tools-tool-directory.png)
![IT Tools hashing a sentence into MD5, SHA and RIPEMD digests](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1788738895/it-tools-hash-text.png)
![IT Tools rendering a QR code for a pasted URL](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1788738896/it-tools-qr-code-generator.png)

## About Hosting IT Tools

IT Tools is an open-source Vue 3 single-page application by Corentin Thomasset, published under GPL-3.0 with more than 40,000 GitHub stars. Because every tool is pure client-side JavaScript, hosting it means serving static files well rather than running an application.

- **~70 utilities in one searchable interface**, keyboard-first, with per-user favourites.
- **Nothing is transmitted** — no analytics, no API calls, no server-side processing of anything you paste.
- **Installable as a PWA**, so it keeps working offline once loaded, with a multilingual UI.
- **Deep-linkable tools**, so `/jwt-parser` or `/crontab-generator` drops straight into a runbook.

The single Railway service replaces the upstream image's minimal file server with an nginx configured for a container platform. It listens on Railway's `$PORT` over IPv4 and IPv6, gzips JavaScript and CSS (the main chunk drops from roughly 900 KB to 270 KB on the wire), marks the hashed files under `/assets/` immutable for a year while leaving `sw.js` uncached so the app can update itself, sizes its workers from the container's CPU quota rather than the host's, and sends a Content-Security-Policy, HSTS and the usual hardening headers on every response. Because IT Tools makes no outbound request, that policy pins `connect-src` to the site's own origin — an injected script would have nowhere to send what you pasted.

## Why Deploy IT Tools on Railway

Running your own copy takes minutes.

- One click, one service, no database or volume to plan.
- HTTPS and a public domain provisioned automatically.
- Redeploy pulls the latest upstream image with no local Docker work.
- Custom domains, so the toolbox lives on your own hostname.
- Optional HTTP basic auth turns it into an internal-only tool.

## Common Use Cases

- **A private replacement for ad-funded online converters**, so engineers stop pasting tokens, connection strings and customer data into third-party sites.
- **A shared internal toolbox** on a company subdomain, linked from onboarding docs.
- **Support and NOC desks** needing subnet maths, MAC lookups, cron parsing and timestamp conversion on locked-down workstations, including restricted networks where the PWA works offline.

## Dependencies for IT Tools

- **it-tools** — the only service. Built from [gridalpha/it-tools-railway](https://github.com/gridalpha/it-tools-railway), which layers a production nginx configuration onto the official `corentinth/it-tools:latest` image. It serves the compiled Vue bundle, handles single-page-app routing and exposes the health endpoint Railway probes.

No database, cache, worker or object storage is created, and none is missing: IT Tools has no server-side state to store.

### Environment Variables Reference

| Variable | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| `PORT` | `80` | Port nginx listens on. Railway sets this; the container falls back to 80 if cleared. |
| `BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME` | unset | Username for optional HTTP basic auth across the whole site. |
| `BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD` | unset | Password for that lock. Set both or neither — setting one alone stops the container rather than serving an unprotected site. |

### Deployment Dependencies

- Upstream project: [github.com/CorentinTh/it-tools](https://github.com/CorentinTh/it-tools) (GPL-3.0)
- Official image: [`corentinth/it-tools`](https://hub.docker.com/r/corentinth/it-tools), mirrored to `ghcr.io/corentinth/it-tools`
- Template source: [github.com/gridalpha/it-tools-railway](https://github.com/gridalpha/it-tools-railway)
- Runtime: nginx 1.26 on Alpine serving a precompiled Vue 3 bundle

## Hardware Requirements for Self-Hosting IT Tools

| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 0.1 vCPU | 0.5 vCPU |
| RAM | 64 MB | 256 MB |
| Storage | None (no volume) | None |
| Runtime | nginx 1.26 / Alpine | nginx 1.26 / Alpine |

## Self-Hosting IT Tools

The upstream image runs anywhere Docker does. This shell command starts it on port 8080:

```
docker run -d --name it-tools --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 8080:80 corentinth/it-tools:latest
```

To build from source instead, clone the repository and produce the static bundle with pnpm; `dist/` can then be served by any web server or CDN:

```
git clone https://github.com/CorentinTh/it-tools.git
cd it-tools
pnpm install
pnpm build
```

## How Much Does IT Tools Cost to Self-Host?

IT Tools is free and open source under GPL-3.0, commercial use included, with no paid tier, licence key or hosted plan to buy. The only cost is infrastructure: on Railway that is a small container plus bandwidth, which for a team-sized instance typically fits inside the Hobby plan's monthly usage credit — the container itself is close to idle, so traffic is the only thing that moves the number.

## FAQ

**What is IT Tools?**
An open-source collection of about seventy developer and IT utilities — hashing, encoding, converters, generators and network calculators — in one searchable web app that runs entirely in the browser.

**What does this Railway template deploy?**
One service running the official IT Tools image behind an nginx tuned for Railway: compression, long-lived caching for hashed assets, single-page-app routing, security headers and a health check. No database or volume is created.

**Why does this template have no database or storage service?**
IT Tools never stores anything server-side. Every tool computes in the browser and per-user state — favourites, theme, language — lives in browser local storage, so a database would hold nothing.

**Is my data safe if I paste a JWT or private key into a self-hosted IT Tools?**
Nothing you type is sent anywhere; there is no backend to receive it. This deployment also restricts outbound connections to the site's own origin, so even an injected script would have nowhere to send it.

**How do I put my self-hosted IT Tools behind a login?**
Set `BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME` and `BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD` on the service and redeploy. The whole site then requires HTTP basic auth while `/healthz` stays open so Railway's health check keeps working. Set both or neither.

**How do I update my IT Tools deployment to the latest version?**
Trigger a redeploy from the Railway dashboard. The build pulls the current `corentinth/it-tools:latest` image, so a new upstream release lands with no changes on your side.

**Can I use a custom domain for self-hosted IT Tools?**
Yes. Add the domain in the service's settings and point the DNS record Railway shows at it. Certificates are issued automatically and the app needs no configuration change, because it embeds no absolute URLs.


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Open this page in a browser: https://railway.com/deploy/ittools