Deploy and Host Octopus LLM API Gateway on Railway

Octopus is a lightweight, self-hosted LLM API aggregation gateway. Plug in multiple provider channels (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint) and expose a single, unified API with automatic failover, protocol conversion and cost analytics — all managed from a clean web dashboard.

About Hosting Octopus

This template runs the official bestrui/octopus image as a single service with a persistent volume mounted at /app/data (SQLite database + auto-generated config.json). A public HTTPS domain is generated automatically and a healthcheck guards zero-downtime redeploys. No external database is required.

After deploy:

Open the generated domain.
Log in with the default credentials admin / admin and change the password immediately in Settings.
Add your provider channels (API keys), create groups, and generate API keys for your clients.
Point any OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible client at https://YOUR-RAILWAY-DOMAIN/v1.

Common Use Cases

One endpoint for all your LLM providers, with automatic failover when an upstream fails
Use Claude Code / Codex / Cursor / agents against any model via OpenAI ⇄ Anthropic ⇄ Responses API conversion
Track token usage and cost per key, channel and model
Share controlled API access with teammates without sharing raw provider keys

Dependencies for Octopus Hosting

Docker image bestrui/octopus (Go single binary with embedded web UI)
Persistent volume for /app/data

Deployment Dependencies

Source: https://github.com/bestruirui/octopus
Configuration reference (env vars OCTOPUS_*): https://github.com/bestruirui/octopus#-environment-variables

Implementation Details

Optional environment variables you can add to the service:

Variable	Purpose
`OCTOPUS_DATABASE_TYPE`	`sqlite` (default), `mysql` or `postgres`
`OCTOPUS_DATABASE_PATH`	Connection string, e.g. `${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}?sslmode=disable`
`OCTOPUS_LOG_LEVEL`	`info` (default), `debug`, `warn`

Why Deploy Octopus 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 Octopus 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.