Deploy Open Notebook

Deploy and Host Open Notebook on Railway

Open Notebook is a self-hosted NotebookLM alternative: collect sources, chat with them, take notes, make podcasts. This template adds a password and an encryption key, so strangers cannot use your instance and your AI provider keys actually save.

About Hosting Open Notebook

Two services: Open Notebook and a private SurrealDB, both pinned to an exact version and health-checked. Deploy with the password you want, then open the URL and sign in with it. Add an AI provider key under Manage, Models.

Common Use Cases

• Research notes over your own sources
• Chat with papers and reports
• Turn reading into a podcast

Dependencies for Open Notebook Hosting

• SurrealDB

Deployment Dependencies

• Open Notebook documentation
• Security configuration

Implementation Details

Keep a copy of OPEN_NOTEBOOK_ENCRYPTION_KEY: it encrypts your provider keys, and changing it makes them unreadable. Turn on volume backups. The app needs about 0.9 GB at first start, so use Trial or Hobby, not Free.

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.

Updated 2026-11-04: first release, Open Notebook 1.15.1, SurrealDB 2.7.0.