Deploy and Host Koharu on Railway

Koharu is a local-first manga translation application written in Rust. It provides OCR, text detection, cleanup, inpainting, translation, review, export, Web UI, and automation support in one workflow. This template deploys Koharu in headless mode so it can be accessed through a Railway public domain.

About Hosting Koharu

Hosting Koharu on Railway runs the official Koharu Docker image as a headless web service. The container exposes Koharu on port 4000, which Railway can route to a public domain. A persistent volume is recommended because Koharu stores runtime files, downloaded model assets, project data, and local application state. This setup is suitable for users who want a browser-accessible Koharu instance without manually configuring a VPS, reverse proxy, container runtime, or deployment pipeline.

Common Use Cases

• Host a browser-accessible manga translation workflow
• Run Koharu in headless mode for OCR, cleanup, translation, and review tasks
• Expose Koharu's MCP endpoint for AI agent automation

Dependencies for Koharu Hosting

• Official Koharu Docker image from GitHub Container Registry
• Railway public networking configured for port 4000
• Railway volume for persistent Koharu runtime and application data
• CPU runtime by default, which may be slower than GPU-backed local deployments

Deployment Dependencies

• Koharu GitHub Repository: https://github.com/mayocream/koharu
• Koharu Documentation: https://koharu.rs/
• Docker Image: ghcr.io/mayocream/koharu:latest
• Railway Docker Deployments: https://docs.railway.com/guides/dockerfiles
• Railway Public Networking: https://docs.railway.com/guides/public-networking
• Railway Volumes: https://docs.railway.com/guides/volumes

Implementation Details

This template uses the official Koharu Docker image: ghcr.io/mayocream/koharu:latest

Recommended environment variable: PORT=4000

Recommended volume mount path: /home/koharu/.local/share/Koharu

Koharu should listen on 0.0.0.0:4000.

After deployment, the Web UI can be accessed from the Railway public domain. The MCP endpoint is typically available at /mcp.

If volume permission issues occur, set RAILWAY_RUN_UID=0.

Why Deploy

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 Koharu 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.