---
title: "Deploy LibreChat"
description: "Private multi-provider AI chat: agents, code interpreter, document RAG"
category: "AI/ML"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/libre-chat
---

# Deploy LibreChat

Private multi-provider AI chat: agents, code interpreter, document RAG

**[Deploy LibreChat on Railway](https://railway.com/template/libre-chat)**

- **Creator:** A3A
- **Category:** AI/ML
- **Total deploys:** 3

## Template content

### LibreChat https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/librechat.svg

- **Image:** ghcr.io/danny-avila/librechat:v0.8.7
- **Health check:** /health
- **Public domain:** Yes

### meilisearch https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/meilisearch.svg

- **Image:** getmeili/meilisearch:v1.35.1
- **Health check:** /health

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

- **Image:** ghcr.io/railwayapp-templates/postgres-ssl:18

### MongoDB https://devicons.railway.app/i/mongodb.svg

- **Image:** mongo:8.0
- **Start command:** `docker-entrypoint.sh mongod --ipv6 --bind_ip ::,0.0.0.0 --setParameter diagnosticDataCollectionEnabled=false`

### rag-api https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/librechat.svg

- **Image:** ghcr.io/danny-avila/librechat-rag-api-dev:v0.8.0
- **Health check:** /health

## Documentation

![LibreChat capabilities](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1785650639/767_1x_shots_so_uwglov.png)

# Deploy and Host LibreChat on Railway

LibreChat is a self-hosted, open-source AI chat platform that puts every model provider behind one ChatGPT-style interface. It is bring-your-own-key by design: add an OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or OpenRouter credential and your team gets one governed URL with AI agents, MCP tools, a code interpreter, RAG file uploads and multi-user auth — every prompt and message in a database you own.

Self-host LibreChat on Railway as five services behind one public domain. `librechat` (port `3080`) serves it and mounts a volume for uploaded images. Managed **MongoDB** stores users, conversations, prompts and agents; **Meilisearch** indexes them for search; the **RAG API** embeds uploaded files into managed **Postgres** with pgvector.

![LibreChat Railway architecture](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1785648839/969_1x_shots_so_aowkgd.png)

## Getting Started with LibreChat on Railway

Open the generated Railway domain once the deploy goes green. There are no default credentials: the app opens on `/register`, and **the first account created becomes the administrator**. Create it immediately, then set `ALLOW_REGISTRATION=false` to close sign-ups; the route then returns `403 Registration is not allowed.` No provider key ships with the template, so the composer first reads *"Please select an Agent"*; that is the expected bring-your-own-key state, not a failed deploy. Add a provider variable below, pick a model and send a message. To confirm persistence, save a Prompts entry, redeploy, and check it survives.

![LibreChat dashboard screenshot](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/v1785648833/81_1x_shots_so_x2oqsa.png)

## Bring Your Own Keys: Connecting AI Providers to LibreChat

The template ships with no provider credentials. Add whichever you hold to the `librechat` service:

```
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
OPENROUTER_KEY=...
```

Use `user_provided` instead of a key and each person supplies their own in the UI. Stored keys are encrypted with `CREDS_KEY` and `CREDS_IV` before reaching MongoDB, so neither may be rotated after launch.

## About Hosting LibreChat

Self-host LibreChat when chat history cannot sit in a vendor's account, or when a team needs several providers side by side without an enterprise contract.

- **Every provider in one UI** — OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure, Google, Bedrock, Groq, Mistral, DeepSeek, OpenRouter and Ollama, switchable mid-conversation.
- **Agents, tools and artifacts** — file handling, OpenAPI actions, MCP servers, a code interpreter, React/HTML/Mermaid artifacts and image generation.
- **Multi-user by default** — email login, OAuth2, LDAP and SAML, two-factor auth, an admin panel and encrypted per-user credentials.

## Why Deploy LibreChat on Railway

Railway runs all five services as one project:

- One-click deploy of pinned official images — no `latest` surprises.
- Managed MongoDB and Postgres over private networking, pgvector included.
- Volumes for images, the search index and the embedding model cache.
- Health checks and the required thread and UID settings preset.

## Common Use Cases LibreChat

- **A private ChatGPT for a company** — one domain, managed accounts, chats in a MongoDB you own.
- **Model evaluation** — compare Claude, GPT and Gemini on one prompt at API rates, not per seat.
- **Custom agents over internal documents** — upload runbooks and wire MCP servers into agents that query your systems.

## Dependencies for LibreChat

- **`librechat`** — [`ghcr.io/danny-avila/librechat:v0.8.7`](https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat): Node.js API and React client, port `3080`, `/health` check, volume at `/app/client/public/images`. `RAILWAY_RUN_UID=0` is required — the image runs as non-root `node` and never chowns the mount, so volume writes fail.
- **`MongoDB`** — managed MongoDB, LibreChat's only primary datastore; its URL must carry `?authSource=admin`.
- **`meilisearch`** — `getmeili/meilisearch:v1.35.1`, port `7700`, volume `/meili_data`: conversation search when `SEARCH=true`. Keep it private; the index holds your chats.
- **`rag-api`** — [`librechat-rag-api-dev:v0.8.0`](https://github.com/danny-avila/rag_api), port `8000`, volume `/app/hf-cache`: LangChain and FastAPI. The **non-lite** image bundles `sentence_transformers`, so `EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER=huggingface` runs `all-MiniLM-L6-v2` locally with **no API key**.
- **`Postgres`** — managed PostgreSQL vector store; it ships the `vector` extension, so no pgvector image is needed.

### LibreChat Environment Variables Reference

| Variable | Service | Value | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| `MONGO_URI` | librechat | `${{MongoDB.MONGO_URL}}/LibreChat?authSource=admin` | Datastore URL; `authSource` mandatory |
| `CREDS_KEY` / `CREDS_IV` | librechat | generated | Encrypt stored provider keys; never rotate |
| `JWT_SECRET` / `JWT_REFRESH_SECRET` | librechat | generated | Sign sessions; rotating logs everyone out |
| `MEILI_MAX_INDEXING_THREADS` | meilisearch | `2` | Caps the indexing thread pool |

`MEILI_MASTER_KEY` is set once on `meilisearch` and referenced from `librechat`; `rag-api` references `${{librechat.JWT_SECRET}}` and rejects mismatched calls.

### Deployment Dependencies

[LibreChat](https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat) (MIT) and [rag_api](https://github.com/danny-avila/rag_api); docs at [librechat.ai/docs](https://www.librechat.ai/docs).

## Hardware Requirements for Self-Hosting LibreChat

| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 2 vCPU across services | 4–8 vCPU across services |
| RAM | 2 GB across services | 4 GB across services |
| Storage | 1 GB per volume | 5–10 GB, plus database storage |
| Runtime | Node.js and Python, in the images | Node.js and Python, in the images |

Idle: `librechat` ~560 MB, `rag-api` ~668 MB, `meilisearch` ~117 MB — the resident embedding model sets the floor. Run one replica.

## Self-Hosting LibreChat with Docker

The repository's Compose file brings up the API, MongoDB, Meilisearch, the RAG API and pgvector:

```
git clone https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat.git
cd LibreChat
cp .env.example .env
docker compose up -d
```

Generate fresh `CREDS_KEY`, `CREDS_IV`, `JWT_SECRET` and `JWT_REFRESH_SECRET` first. To run only the app against existing services:

```
docker run -d --name librechat -p 3080:3080 \
  -e MONGO_URI="mongodb://user:pass@host:27017/LibreChat?authSource=admin" \
  -e MEILI_HOST="http://meilisearch:7700" -e MEILI_MASTER_KEY="" -e SEARCH=true \
  -e CREDS_KEY="<32-byte hex>" -e CREDS_IV="<16-byte hex>" \
  -e JWT_SECRET="" -e JWT_REFRESH_SECRET="" \
  -v librechat-images:/app/client/public/images \
  ghcr.io/danny-avila/librechat:v0.8.7
```

The optional `librechat.yaml` is only needed for custom endpoints, S3 storage or per-model settings.

## Is LibreChat Free? How Much Does It Cost to Self-Host?

LibreChat is free and MIT-licensed — no SaaS tier, no seat pricing. On Railway you pay infrastructure only: five services, managed MongoDB and Postgres, three volumes. Beyond that you pay your AI provider for the tokens you use, at API rates — point LibreChat at a self-hosted Ollama endpoint and that drops to zero.

## Troubleshooting Self-Hosted LibreChat

**Meilisearch crash-loops with `os error 11` (`Resource temporarily unavailable`)** → not an LMDB lock or a volume-permission fault. It is `EAGAIN` from `pthread_create`: Meilisearch sizes its indexing thread pool from the *host's* core count, not the container's CPU quota, so the spawn fails. Set `MEILI_MAX_INDEXING_THREADS=2`.

**Meilisearch fails its health check while the process is up** → the check probes the port Railway infers, and `7700` is not inferred. Set `PORT=7700`; Meilisearch itself binds via `MEILI_HTTP_ADDR`.

**LibreChat crash-loops with `Authentication failed`** → the Mongo URL lacks `?authSource=admin`. Appending a database name makes it the driver's auth source, but the user lives in `admin`.

## FAQ

**What is LibreChat?**

A free, MIT-licensed, self-hosted AI chat platform: one ChatGPT-style interface over many providers, with agents, MCP tools, a code interpreter and RAG over uploaded files.

**What does this Railway template deploy?**

Five services: `librechat` `v0.8.7` with the public domain, managed `MongoDB`, `meilisearch` `v1.35.1`, `rag-api` `v0.8.0` and managed `Postgres`.

**Does this LibreChat template include an AI provider key?**

No — it is bring-your-own-key. Add `OPENAI_API_KEY`, `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` or another provider variable yourself; until then the model picker stays empty.

**Why does self-hosted LibreChat need MongoDB, Meilisearch and Postgres?**

MongoDB is the only primary datastore; Meilisearch indexes conversations for search; Postgres with pgvector holds embeddings, which the RAG service generates locally with no embeddings API key.

**What are the default login credentials for self-hosted LibreChat?**

None. The first account registered becomes the administrator, so create yours immediately, then set `ALLOW_REGISTRATION=false`.


## Similar templates

- [Chat Chat](https://railway.com/deploy/-WWW5r) — Chat Chat, your own unified chat and search to AI platform.
- [stella](https://railway.com/deploy/stella) — Self-host stella with web, API, Postgres, Redis, and object storage.
- [Hermes Agent | OpenClaw Alternative with Dashboard](https://railway.com/deploy/hermes-agent-or-openclaw-alternative-wit) — Self-Hosted Hermes AI Agent for Telegram, Discord & Slack

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