---
title: "Deploy JupyterLab | (Just Updated) Notebooks and pip Installs Survive Redeploys"
description: "Hosted JupyterLab whose notebooks and pip installs survive every redeploy"
category: "Other"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/jupyterlab-or-just-updated-notebooks-and
---

# Deploy JupyterLab | (Just Updated) Notebooks and pip Installs Survive Redeploys

Hosted JupyterLab whose notebooks and pip installs survive every redeploy

**[Deploy JupyterLab | (Just Updated) Notebooks and pip Installs Survive Redeploys on Railway](https://railway.com/template/jupyterlab-or-just-updated-notebooks-and)**

- **Creator:** SuperSlowSloth
- **Category:** Other

## Template content

### jupyterlab

- **Image:** ghcr.io/bon5co/jupyterlab-railway:2026.09.03
- **Health check:** /login
- **Public domain:** Yes

## Documentation

# Deploy and Host JupyterLab on Railway

JupyterLab is the browser-based notebook and data-science workspace from Project Jupyter: notebooks,
a terminal, a file browser and an editor over a full SciPy stack (NumPy, pandas, scikit-learn,
matplotlib, SciPy, and the rest of the `scipy-notebook` image).

This template runs it as one service on one volume, with the two things a hosted notebook actually
has to do: **your notebooks are still there after a redeploy, and so are the packages you pip
installed.**

## About Hosting JupyterLab

JupyterLab keeps everything in the home directory of the user it runs as — `/home/jovyan` in the
official Jupyter Docker Stacks image. That is the file-browser root, that is where a new notebook is
saved, and that is where `pip install --user` puts packages.

On Railway that matters more than it does locally, because the container filesystem is discarded on
every redeploy. A volume mounted anywhere narrower than the home directory persists only the part of
your work that happens to be underneath it, and packages installed from a notebook go to the image's
own `site-packages`, which is not on any volume at all.

This template mounts the volume at `/home/jovyan` itself and restores the image's home skeleton for
anything the volume does not already carry, so both the default save location and the user
site-packages directory are on persistent disk. It also honours Railway's injected `PORT`, repairs
the root-owned volume mount before the server drops privileges, and refuses to start without a
password — JupyterLab runs arbitrary code, so an unauthenticated public URL is not an option.

## Why Deploy JupyterLab on Railway?

Railway gives the notebook server a public HTTPS URL, a persistent volume and a fixed monthly
resource footprint with no VM to maintain. Compared with running a notebook on your laptop, the
kernel keeps running when you close the lid, long jobs survive a lost network, and the URL is
shareable. Compared with a managed notebook service, you keep the full SciPy image, root over your
own environment, and no per-seat pricing.

The password is generated for you at deploy time, and re-applied on every boot — so redeploying is
also the way to reset it if it is lost.

## Common Use Cases

- Exploratory data analysis and modelling on a machine that stays awake between sessions.
- A shared scratch environment for a small team, reachable from any browser.
- Long-running data pulls, scraping or training loops that must survive a closed laptop.
- Teaching or demo notebooks served from a stable URL.

## Dependencies for JupyterLab

- The `quay.io/jupyter/scipy-notebook` image, pinned by digest and wrapped for Railway
  ([bon5co/jupyterlab-railway](https://github.com/bon5co/jupyterlab-railway)).

### Deployment Dependencies

- A Railway volume mounted at `/home/jovyan` (created by this template).
- `JUPYTER_PASSWORD` — generated automatically; the container will not start with an empty value.

### Implementation Details

`pip install` from inside a notebook goes to `/home/jovyan/.local/lib/python3.13/site-packages`
(`PIP_USER=1`), which is on the volume, and `~/.local/bin` is on `PATH` so installed console scripts
work. The server listens on Railway's injected `PORT`, and the healthcheck is `/login`.


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