Deploy and Host Node-RED on Railway

Node-RED is a low-code, flow-based programming tool for wiring together APIs, devices and online services through a visual browser editor. This template deploys Node-RED with a password-protected editor and a persistent volume, so your flows survive every redeploy.

About Hosting Node-RED

This template deploys a single service: a Node-RED instance built from the official nodered/node-red image, with a startup script that secures the editor automatically.

On every start, the container:

Fixes the ownership of the /data volume so Node-RED can write to it.
Applies the bundled settings.js and installs the declared nodes.
Seeds flows.json only on first boot, so flows you create in the editor are never overwritten.
Protects the editor with the admin user, using the password from ADMIN_PASSWORD or a randomly generated one.

After deployment:

Set the ADMIN_PASSWORD variable on the service (recommended). Without it, a new random password is generated on every deploy and printed to the deploy logs, inside the NODE-RED ADMIN CREDENTIALS block.
Make sure a volume is mounted at /data so your flows and credentials persist.
Open the service's public domain and log in with the username admin and your password.

Common Use Cases

Build automations and integrations between APIs with a drag-and-drop interface
Create HTTP endpoints, webhooks and scheduled jobs without writing a backend
Collect, transform and route data from IoT devices, MQTT brokers and databases
Rapidly prototype workflows and internal tools with minimal code

Dependencies for Node-RED

The Railway template includes all required dependencies: the Node.js runtime, Node-RED and the password provisioning script.

Deployment Dependencies

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
`ADMIN_PASSWORD`	Password for the `admin` user. If empty, a random one is generated on every start.
`PORT`	HTTP port, set automatically by Railway (defaults to `1880`).

Why Deploy Node-RED 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 Node-RED 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.