How do I deploy Open Notebook on Railway?

You can deploy Open Notebook 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: open-notebook-dff56db2, or join our Discord community for more assistance.

Deploy and Host Open Notebook on Railway

When you finish deploying and testing, feel free to set your password in the open-notebook service with the OPEN_NOTEBOOK_PASSWORD environment variable and redeploy.

Open Notebook is a privacy-focused, open-source alternative to Google's Notebook LM. It lets you organize research, chat with AI using your content as context, and generate professional multi-speaker podcasts—all while supporting 16+ AI providers and keeping your data under your control.

Open Notebook Interface

About Hosting Open Notebook

Deploying Open Notebook involves running a Docker container that bundles the Next.js/React frontend, FastAPI backend, and SurrealDB database. The application exposes two ports: 8502 for the web interface and 5055 for the REST API. You'll need to configure environment variables for your preferred AI provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, etc.) and database credentials. Railway simplifies this by managing the container orchestration, persistent storage for your notebooks and database, and networking configuration automatically.

Common Use Cases

Research & Learning: Organize PDFs, videos, web pages, and documents into notebooks, then chat with AI to gain insights from your collected materials
Podcast Generation: Transform your research notes into professional multi-speaker podcasts with customizable voices and episode profiles
Private Knowledge Management: Build a personal knowledge base with full-text and vector search while maintaining complete data sovereignty

Dependencies for Open Notebook Hosting

AI Provider API Key: At minimum, an OpenAI API key (or keys for Anthropic, Google, Groq, etc.)
SurrealDB: Included in the single-container deployment image
Persistent Storage: For notebook data and database files

Deployment Dependencies

Implementation Details

Key environment variables to configure:

OPENAI_API_KEY=your_key_here          # Or other provider keys
API_URL=http://YOUR_DOMAIN:5055       # Required for remote access
SURREAL_URL=ws://localhost:8000/rpc
SURREAL_USER=root
SURREAL_PASSWORD=root
SURREAL_NAMESPACE=open_notebook
SURREAL_DATABASE=production

Ports required:

8502: Web UI (Next.js frontend)
5055: API backend (FastAPI)

Why Deploy Open Notebook 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 Open Notebook 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.