Deploy and Host Koel on Railway

Koel is a personal music streaming server. Upload or sync a library, browse artists/albums/playlists, and stream from the web UI (and companion apps).

About Hosting Koel

This template runs Koel with PostgreSQL. Only the app is public; the database stays on private networking. A single volume at /data holds the music library, artwork, search indexes, and the persisted APP_KEY (Railway allows one volume per service). First boot runs koel:init / migrations and may take a minute before /sw.js is ready.

Default admin after first boot: admin@koel.dev / KoelIsCool — change it immediately.

Common Use Cases

Personal always-on music library with browser / mobile clients
Shared household streaming with playlists and queue
Self-hosted alternative to cloud music lock-in

Dependencies for Koel Hosting

Koel app (phanan/koel)
PostgreSQL 16

Deployment Dependencies

Upstream project: https://github.com/koel/koel
Docker image / Compose: https://github.com/koel/docker
Product docs: https://docs.koel.dev/
Docker Hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/phanan/koel

Implementation Details

Public entry: app on port 80, healthcheck /sw.js
Wrapper entrypoint writes .env (required by koel-init) and consolidates upstream's three volumes under /data
Optional Last.fm / Spotify keys for metadata and artwork

Why Deploy Koel 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 Koel 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.