---
title: "Deploy Kestra Orchestration + Postgres"
description: "Kestra orchestration with Postgres, declarative YAML workflows"
category: "Automation"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/kestra-orchestration-postgres
---

# Deploy Kestra Orchestration + Postgres

Kestra orchestration with Postgres, declarative YAML workflows

**[Deploy Kestra Orchestration + Postgres on Railway](https://railway.com/template/kestra-orchestration-postgres)**

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

- **Creator:** Protemplate
- **Category:** Automation
- **Total deploys:** 3

## Template content

### Postgres https://devicons.railway.app/i/postgresql.svg

- **Image:** ghcr.io/railwayapp-templates/postgres-ssl:17

### Kestra https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kestra-io/kestra/v2.0.2/ui/src/assets/logo-small.png

- **Image:** kestra/kestra:v2.0.2-slim
- **Start command:** `/usr/local/bin/docker-entrypoint.sh server standalone`
- **Health check:** /ping
- **Public domain:** Yes

## Documentation

# Deploy and Host Kestra on Railway

Kestra is an open source, event driven orchestration platform. Workflows are declarative YAML files
called flows: each one has an id, a namespace, a list of tasks, and optional inputs, triggers and
error handlers. Kestra schedules them, runs them, keeps the full execution history, and exposes every
UI action as a REST endpoint, so it works equally well as a scheduler, an ETL runner, or the control
plane behind an internal API.

## About Hosting Kestra

Hosting Kestra means running the standalone server next to PostgreSQL. Postgres holds the flow
repository and the internal message queue; a persistent volume holds internal storage, which is where
task outputs, namespace files, KV entries and auto installed plugins live. This template uses the
official `kestra/kestra:v2.0.2-slim` image, pins `PORT=8080` so Railway's healthcheck reaches `/ping`,
points the JDBC datasource at a private Postgres service over Railway's internal network, and mounts a
volume at `/app/storage`.

Two choices are worth calling out. First, basic auth is enabled by default with a generated password,
so the instance is never briefly open on the public internet. Second, the template ships the slim
image rather than the 3.2 GB image that bundles every plugin: Kestra's plugin auto install fetches
what a flow actually needs from Maven Central on first use and caches it on the volume, which keeps
deploys fast without limiting what you can build.

## Common Use Cases

- **Scheduled data pipelines**: cron style schedules with backfills, retries and SLA conditions
- **Event driven workflows**: webhook triggers, flow triggers and polling triggers that start runs on external events
- **ETL and ELT orchestration**: coordinate dbt, Snowflake, BigQuery, Postgres, S3 and Kafka steps in one flow
- **Internal automation APIs**: expose a flow as an HTTP endpoint and let other services call it
- **An Airflow alternative**: declarative YAML and a language agnostic API instead of Python DAG code

## Dependencies for Kestra Hosting

- **PostgreSQL**: required for the flow repository and the queue (included in this template)
- **A volume**: required for internal storage and cached plugins (included, mounted at `/app/storage`)
- **No external API keys**: Kestra boots with none, and needs none unless a flow uses a third party service
- **Outbound access to Maven Central**: used only when a flow references a plugin that is not yet installed

### Deployment Dependencies

- [Kestra documentation](https://kestra.io/docs)
- [Configuration reference](https://kestra.io/docs/configuration)
- [Docker installation guide](https://kestra.io/docs/installation/docker)
- [Kestra GitHub repository](https://github.com/kestra-io/kestra)

### Implementation Details

The image entrypoint writes `KESTRA_CONFIGURATION` to `/app/confs/application.yml` and hands it to
Micronaut, so the whole server is configured from one variable that you can extend at any time.

```env
PORT=8080
MICRONAUT_SERVER_PORT=${{PORT}}
KESTRA_ADMIN_USERNAME=admin@kestra.local
KESTRA_ADMIN_PASSWORD=Kestra1${{secret(24)}}
KESTRA_URL=https://${{RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}}/
RAILWAY_RUN_UID=0
```

After deploy, open the service domain and sign in with `KESTRA_ADMIN_USERNAME` and
`KESTRA_ADMIN_PASSWORD`. The username has to stay in email form and the password needs at least eight
characters with an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter and a digit, because Kestra validates both.
From there you can write a flow in the editor or push one with
`POST /api/v1/main/flows` using `Content-Type: application/x-yaml`. The open source tenant is always
called `main`, which is why it appears in every API path.

One Railway specific note: Kestra's script tasks (`io.kestra.plugin.scripts.*`) default to the Docker
task runner, and Railway does not expose a Docker socket. Add
`taskRunner: {type: io.kestra.plugin.core.runner.Process}` to those tasks and they run inside the
Kestra container instead. Every other task type, including all core tasks, triggers, schedules,
subflows and the JVM based integration plugins, works without any change.

## Why Deploy Kestra 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 Kestra on Railway, you get a pre-configured orchestration platform with Postgres,
persistent internal storage, a generated admin password, health checks, managed SSL, and private
networking to the rest of your services.


## Similar templates

- [N8N Main + Worker](https://railway.com/deploy/n8n-main-worker) — Deploy and Host N8N with Inactive worker.
- [Evolution API with n8n](https://railway.com/deploy/evolution-api-with-n8n) — Automate WhatsApp workflows with Evolution API, n8n, and Postgres.
- [Postgres Backup](https://railway.com/deploy/postgres-s3-backups) — Cron-based PostgreSQL backup to bucket storage

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