Deploy and Host Laravel Community on Railway

Laravel Community is a modern, full-featured marketplace platform that combines e-commerce, user marketplaces, community forums, and content management into one seamless experience. Built with Laravel 12 and React 19, it's designed for communities looking to create their own digital ecosystem with professional-grade features.

About Hosting Laravel Community

Deploying Laravel Community involves orchestrating multiple services working together: a PHP application server, database, Redis cache, queue workers, and file storage. The platform requires environment configuration for payment processing (Stripe), email services, OAuth providers (Discord, Roblox), and optional monitoring tools. Railway simplifies this by providing a unified deployment platform where all these services can be configured and scaled together. The included Dockerfile and docker-compose configuration make deployment straightforward, while the modular architecture allows you to enable only the features your community needs.

Common Use Cases

• Community Marketplaces - Build platforms where community members can sell digital products, resources, or services with automated payouts
• Gaming Communities - Create hubs for gaming communities with forums, stores for in-game items, and Discord/Roblox integration
• Creator Platforms - Launch subscription-based platforms where creators sell content, courses, or memberships to their audience
• Niche E-commerce - Run specialized stores with community-driven content, user reviews, forums, and marketplace features
• SaaS Communities - Build customer communities around your product with support tickets, forums, and a marketplace for extensions

Dependencies for Laravel Community Hosting

Core Infrastructure

• PHP 8.4+ - Backend runtime for Laravel application
• Node.js 22+ - Frontend build tools and asset compilation
• Database Service - MySQL or PostgreSQL for production (SQLite for development)
• Redis - Required for caching, sessions, and queue management
• Web Server - Nginx or Apache (handled by Docker container)

Application Services

• Queue Worker - Laravel Horizon for background job processing
• Mail Service - SMTP, Sendgrid, Mailgun, SES, Postmark, or Resend for transactional emails
• File Storage - S3-compatible storage for user uploads and product files
• Payment Processor - Stripe account for payments (default, other processors supported via modular architecture)
• Payout Processor - Stripe connect account for payouts (default, other processors supported via modular architecture)
• Support Ticket Processor - Database driver included

Optional Services

• OAuth Providers - Discord and/or Roblox app credentials for social authentication
• Monitoring - Laravel Telescope for debugging (development only)
• Search Engine - Laravel Scout with Algolia, Meilisearch, or database driver

Deployment Dependencies

• Railway CLI - Command-line interface for Railway deployments
• Docker - Container runtime (if deploying locally first)
• Stripe Account - Payment processing (free to start, only pay per transaction)

Post-Deployment Setup

After deployment, the container will automatically run the necessary commands to install and configure the application - including creating a test account. See the deploy logs for more information.

At any time, you may reinstall the application using the following command:

railway ssh -- php artisan app:install --name="Admin Name" --email="[email protected]" --password="secure-password" -n --force

This command will:

• Reset the database
• Seed required groups, permissions and roles
• Create your admin user account

Why Deploy Laravel Community 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 Laravel Community 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.

Railway-Specific Benefits for Laravel Community

• One-Click Service Provisioning - Add MySQL, Redis, and other services instantly without manual configuration
• Automatic Environment Variables - Railway automatically injects database credentials and service URLs
• Zero-Downtime Deployments - Deploy updates without interrupting your community
• Horizontal Scaling - Scale web servers and queue workers independently based on traffic
• Built-in Monitoring - Track application performance, errors, and resource usage from the Railway dashboard
• Custom Domains - Connect your domain with automatic SSL certificate provisioning
• GitHub Integration - Automatic deployments on every push to your repository

Ready to deploy? Use the Railway deploy button in the README to launch your instance in minutes.