How do I deploy mermaid-live-editor on Railway?

You can deploy mermaid-live-editor on Railway by clicking the "Deploy Now" button on this page. Railway will automatically set up all the necessary services and configurations for you.

What are the system requirements?

Railway handles all the infrastructure requirements. You only need a web browser to deploy and manage your application.

Is this template free to use?

Yes, this template is free to use within your existing Railway account.

Can I customize this template?

Yes, you can fully customize this template. After deployment, you will have full control of what you've deployed in your Railway project.

How do I get support for this template?

You can get support through our community forum: mermaid-live-editor-687acc6e, or click "Get template help" for this template for more assistance.

Deploy and Host mermaid-live-editor on Railway

mermaid‑live‑editor is an open‑source, browser‑based IDE for the Mermaid diagramming language that provides a split‑pane markdown editor and real‑time rendered preview. It lets individuals and teams design flowcharts, sequence diagrams, ERDs, and more, then export to PNG/SVG or embed directly in docs and wikis—all without installing native graphing tools.

About Hosting mermaid-live-editor

Running mermaid‑live‑editor onRailway gives you a stateless, auto‑scaling service that serves a pre‑built static SPA plus a lightweight Node/Express back‑end for on‑the‑fly diagram rendering (via the @mermaid-js/mermaid-cli). Deployment typically involves cloning the upstream repository, installing Node ≥ 18 LTS dependencies, executing pnpm run build, and configuring Railway to expose port 9000. Because the editor is pure front‑end and uses browser storage for drafts, no persistent database is required, keeping costs minimal and cold‑starts fast. Environment variables are optional—set BASE_PATH if you want the app to live under a custom sub‑path.

Common Use Cases

Technical documentation hubs where engineers collaboratively draft sequence or architecture diagrams.
On‑call runbooks that embed up‑to‑date flowcharts without committing binary images to repos.
Product or curriculum demos that need an interactive diagram sandbox for workshops and tutorials.

Dependencies for mermaid-live-editor Hosting

Node.js 18 LTS (or newer) runtime for build and optional SSR.
pnpm or npm package manager to install JavaScript dependencies.

Deployment Dependencies

Upstream repository: https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid-live-editor
Quick‑deploy template (community): https://railway.app/new/template/mermaid-live-editor

Implementation Details

# Example Railway build &amp; start commands
railway run pnpm i --frozen-lockfile
railway run pnpm run build
railway run pnpm run start -- --port=$PORT

Optional environment variables:

Variable	Purpose	Default
`PORT`	Port exposed by Railway	9000
`BASE_PATH`	Serve app under sub‑path (e.g. `/app`)	`/`

Why Deploy mermaid-live-editor on Railway?

mermaid-live-editor is primarily a front‑end SPA with optional on‑the‑fly image rendering, so it thrives on Railway’s scale‑to‑zero model. Containers sleep automatically when no one is editing diagrams, cutting idle costs to near‑zero, yet wake in seconds when traffic returns. During spikes—like workshops or hackathons—Railway’s horizontal autoscaling spins up extra instances without manual tuning. Combined with per‑second billing, built‑in HTTPS, and global edge routing, you get an always‑fast, always‑secure diagram sandbox while only paying for the resources you actually use.