How do I deploy openinary on Railway?

You can deploy openinary 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: openinary-3dacc037, or click "Get template help" for this template for more assistance.

Deploy and Host Openinary on Railway

Openinary is a self-hosted, open-source media processing platform — the free alternative to Cloudinary. Transform images and videos on-the-fly using simple URL parameters, with built-in S3-compatible storage and an admin dashboard.

About Hosting Openinary

Openinary runs as a single Docker container that bundles Nginx, a Node.js API with FFmpeg for media processing, and a Next.js admin dashboard. It connects to any S3-compatible bucket (AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, Wasabi, MinIO, DigitalOcean Spaces) for persistent media storage. A Railway persistent volume at /app/data stores the SQLite database for admin accounts and API keys. No external database is required — just your S3 credentials and you're live.

Common Use Cases

Replace Cloudinary in your app with a zero-cost-per-transformation media pipeline
Serve optimized WebP/AVIF images and compressed videos from your own S3 bucket
Build a media CDN for SaaS products that need image resizing and video thumbnails

Dependencies for Openinary Hosting

S3-compatible storage bucket — AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, Wasabi, MinIO, or DigitalOcean Spaces
Railway Persistent Volume — mounted at /app/data to persist the SQLite database across deploys

Deployment Dependencies

Implementation Details

Once deployed, Openinary exposes a URL-based transformation API:

Resize image to 800×600, convert to WebP

GET /t/w_800,h_600,f_webp,q_80/photo.jpg

Extract video thumbnail at 5 seconds

GET /t/w_800,h_450,so_5,f_avif/video.mp4

Compress video for web

GET /t/w_1280,h_720,q_75/video.mp4 `

Visit /setup after first deploy to create your admin account and generate API keys.

Why Deploy Openinary 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 Openinary 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.