--- title: "Deploy OpenPanel" description: "Web and product analytics with events, funnels and user profiles" category: "Analytics" url: https://railway.com/deploy/openpanel-analytics --- # Deploy OpenPanel Web and product analytics with events, funnels and user profiles **[Deploy OpenPanel on Railway](https://railway.com/template/openpanel-analytics)** Machine-readable deploy manifest (JSON, validated by TemplateCI): https://railway.com/deploy/openpanel-analytics/manifest.json - **Creator:** A3A - **Category:** Analytics - **Total deploys:** 1 ## Template content ### dashboard https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/openpanel-light.svg - **Image:** lindesvard/openpanel-dashboard:2.3.0 - **Health check:** /api/healthcheck ### api https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/openpanel-light.svg - **Image:** lindesvard/openpanel-api:2.3.0 - **Start command:** `/bin/sh -c 'for i in $(seq 1 30); do CI=true pnpm -r run migrate:deploy && break; echo "[railway] migrations failed, retrying in 10s"; sleep 10; done; exec node dist/index.js'` - **Health check:** /healthcheck ### worker https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/openpanel-light.svg - **Image:** lindesvard/openpanel-worker:2.3.0 - **Health check:** /healthcheck ### Redis https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/redis.svg - **Image:** redis:8.2 - **Start command:** `/bin/sh -c "rm -rf $RAILWAY_VOLUME_MOUNT_PATH/lost+found/ && exec docker-entrypoint.sh redis-server --requirepass $REDIS_PASSWORD --save 60 1 --dir $RAILWAY_VOLUME_MOUNT_PATH"` ### caddy https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/caddy.svg - **Source:** https://github.com/gridalpha/openpanel-railway - **Health check:** /healthz - **Public domain:** Yes ### clickhouse https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/clickhouse.svg - **Source:** https://github.com/gridalpha/openpanel-railway - **Health check:** /ping ### mailpit https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/mailpit.svg - **Image:** axllent/mailpit:latest - **Health check:** /livez - **Public domain:** Yes ### Postgres https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/svg/postgresql.svg - **Image:** ghcr.io/railwayapp-templates/postgres-ssl:18 ## Documentation # Deploy and Host OpenPanel on Railway OpenPanel is an open-source web and product analytics platform: the pageview reporting you expect from Plausible plus the events, funnels and profiles you expect from Mixpanel. It suits teams who want to know which pages bring visitors in *and* what those visitors then do, without handing that data to a vendor. Events land in your own ClickHouse instance, visitors are identified by a rotating salted hash rather than a tracking cookie, and every chart is queried from the raw event table. Deploy OpenPanel on Railway and this template pre-configures the whole self-hosted stack: `caddy` as the public front door, `dashboard` for the interface, `api` for ingestion and the tRPC layer, `worker` for queues and scheduled jobs, `clickhouse` for the event store, managed `Postgres` and `Redis`, and a `mailpit` inbox so invitations and password resets work immediately. Browser traffic and SDK calls both reach `caddy`, which sends `/api*` to the API and everything else to the dashboard — one origin, one session cookie, no CORS to get wrong. ![Diagram of the eight OpenPanel services deployed on Railway](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1789275795/openpanel-architecture.webp) ## Getting Started with OpenPanel on Railway Open the `caddy` service's public URL once the deploy is green. There are no default credentials: the first person to visit `/onboarding` becomes the owner, and registration closes behind them, because the template ships `ALLOW_REGISTRATION=false` and OpenPanel exempts only the first user. Claim that account immediately, then name your workspace and create a project, choosing Website, App or Backend. The connect screen shows a client ID, a client secret and a ready-made snippet. Paste it into your site — pointing the second script tag at `/op1.js` on your own deployment rather than the vendor's CDN — or use a framework SDK. The verify step waits for your first live event. After that, Overview gives you visitors, referrers, pages and devices; Realtime maps sessions by city; Events pages through the raw stream; and Create report saves a chart onto a dashboard. One test event from a terminal is the fastest end-to-end check: it exercises the API, Redis, the worker and ClickHouse at once. ![OpenPanel overview with visitors, referrers and top pages](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1789275797/openpanel-overview.webp) ![OpenPanel event stream showing country, OS and browser](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1789275799/openpanel-events.webp) ![OpenPanel realtime map with live visitors by city](https://res.cloudinary.com/rroe4rtk/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1789275802/openpanel-realtime.webp) ## About Hosting OpenPanel Self-host OpenPanel when analytics data is sensitive, when ad blockers eat a third of your traffic on a vendor domain, or when per-event pricing makes product analytics too expensive to leave on. Running it yourself means unlimited events, SQL-level access to the raw data and a tracker served from your own domain. - Web analytics: visitors, sessions, bounce rate, referrers, UTM campaigns, entry and exit pages - Product analytics: custom events, funnels, retention, cohorts, profiles and groups - Realtime view with a live world map, saved reports, dashboards and public share links - Session replay, Google Search Console SEO reporting, event notification rules - SDKs for web, React, Next.js, Vue, Astro, React Native, Node, Laravel, Rust, Ruby, iOS and Android, plus a REST API Each service has one job. `caddy` owns the public origin and forwards `/api*` to the API with the prefix stripped. `api` validates and enqueues events, serves the dashboard's tRPC calls and runs the Postgres and ClickHouse migrations at boot. `worker` drains the queue into ClickHouse, stitches sessions and runs cron jobs. `clickhouse` stores events; `Postgres` holds accounts, projects, reports and dashboards; `Redis` carries queues, caching and rate limits. ## Why Deploy OpenPanel on Railway Railway removes the infrastructure work this stack needs: - Postgres, Redis and ClickHouse provisioned and wired together - Private networking; only the front door is public - Persistent volumes for ClickHouse and captured mail - Health checks and automatic restarts on every service - One-click redeploys when a newer OpenPanel release ships ## Common Use Cases - Replace Google Analytics with a privacy-friendly tracker on your own database - Track signups, activation and feature adoption, and build funnels over them - Give each client or site in a portfolio its own project in one workspace - Feed mobile and backend events into the same timeline as web pageviews ## Dependencies for OpenPanel - `lindesvard/openpanel-api:2.3.0` — Fastify API, ingestion and migrations - `lindesvard/openpanel-dashboard:2.3.0` — the user interface - `lindesvard/openpanel-worker:2.3.0` — queue workers, cron and queue inspector - `clickhouse/clickhouse-server:25.10.2.65` — event store, built from the template's source repo with OpenPanel's config - `caddy:2-alpine` — single-origin reverse proxy, same repo - Railway managed Postgres 18 and Redis 8.2 - `axllent/mailpit:latest` — SMTP capture for invites and password resets ### Environment Variables Reference | Variable | Purpose | |---|---| | `DASHBOARD_URL` | Public URL of the deployment; also the cookie and CORS origin | | `CUSTOM_COOKIE_DOMAIN` | Exact host for the session cookie — required on a `railway.app` domain | | `COOKIE_SECRET` | Signs session cookies; keep it stable | | `ENCRYPTION_KEY` | 64 hex characters, encrypts TOTP and integration tokens | | `ALLOW_REGISTRATION` | `false` after the first account; `true` reopens signup | | `SMTP_HOST` / `SMTP_PORT` | Mail transport; point at a real relay in production | | `DISABLE_BULLBOARD` | Set to `1` to switch off the queue inspector | ### Deployment Dependencies - Source: [github.com/Openpanel-dev/openpanel](https://github.com/Openpanel-dev/openpanel) - Images: [hub.docker.com/u/lindesvard](https://hub.docker.com/u/lindesvard) - Docs: [openpanel.dev/docs](https://openpanel.dev/docs) - Runtime: Node.js 22, ClickHouse 25.10, PostgreSQL 18, Redis 8 ## Hardware Requirements for Self-Hosting OpenPanel | Resource | Minimum | Recommended | |---|---|---| | CPU | 2 vCPU across all services | 4 vCPU | | RAM | 4 GB total | 8 GB, mostly for ClickHouse | | Storage | 5 GB ClickHouse volume | 20 GB+ at high volume | | Runtime | Docker / container platform | Railway | ClickHouse compresses events aggressively — millions fit in a few gigabytes — but it is the service to watch as traffic grows. ## Self-Hosting OpenPanel Upstream ships a bundle for a single Docker host. Clone the repo and run its setup script, which writes a Compose file and a Caddy config for your domain: ``` git clone https://github.com/Openpanel-dev/openpanel.git cd openpanel/self-hosting ./setup ./start ``` Every service is configured by environment variables, so the images run directly too. The API needs all three datastores and migrates before starting: ``` docker run -d --name openpanel-api \ -e DATABASE_URL="postgresql://postgres:pass@db:5432/postgres?schema=public" \ -e CLICKHOUSE_URL="http://default:pass@clickhouse:8123/openpanel" \ -e REDIS_URL="redis://redis:6379" -e SELF_HOSTED=true \ -e DASHBOARD_URL="https://analytics.example.com" \ -e API_URL="https://analytics.example.com/api" \ -e COOKIE_SECRET="change-me" -p 3000:3000 \ lindesvard/openpanel-api:2.3.0 \ sh -c "CI=true pnpm -r run migrate:deploy && node dist/index.js" ``` Serve the dashboard and API from one hostname: splitting them across two domains breaks the session cookie, which is why this template puts Caddy in front. ## How Much Does OpenPanel Cost to Self-Host? OpenPanel is open source under AGPL-3.0 and free to run, with no event caps, seat limits or feature gates. The hosted cloud starts around $20/month at a comparable volume, so self-hosting pays for itself quickly. On Railway you pay only for the compute, memory and volumes the services use, and ClickHouse is the part that grows with traffic. The project also sells a supporter tier unlocking a private registry of daily builds; the free Docker Hub releases used here are the same software on a slower cadence. ## FAQ **What is OpenPanel?** An open-source analytics platform that merges web and product analytics in one interface — a self-hostable alternative to Mixpanel, PostHog and Plausible. **What does this Railway template deploy?** Eight services: a Caddy front door, the dashboard, the API, a worker, ClickHouse, managed Postgres and Redis, and a Mailpit inbox. **Why does OpenPanel need both ClickHouse and Postgres?** ClickHouse is columnar and built for billions of append-only event rows; Postgres stores the relational, low-volume side — accounts, projects, reports and dashboards. Redis carries the queue between API and worker. **How do I create the first admin account on a self-hosted OpenPanel?** Visit `/onboarding` on the deployed URL. The first account to register becomes the workspace owner and registration closes afterwards; set `ALLOW_REGISTRATION=true` to reopen it, or invite teammates by email. **Can I send events from a backend or mobile app rather than a browser?** Yes. Every SDK and the REST API take the same payload — `POST /api/track` with `openpanel-client-id` and `openpanel-client-secret` headers — so server, mobile and web events share one timeline. **How do I connect a real email provider to self-hosted OpenPanel?** Set `SMTP_HOST`, `SMTP_PORT`, `SMTP_USER` and `SMTP_PASS` on the api, dashboard and worker services — or `RESEND_API_KEY` instead — and point `EMAIL_SENDER` at a domain you control. ## Similar templates - [Typesense vs Meilisearch](https://railway.com/deploy/typesense-vs-meilisearch) — self-hosted Typesense vs Meilisearch - [Betterlytics](https://railway.com/deploy/betterlytics) — Betterlytics is a cookieless analytics platform GDPR-compliant. - [Finance Tracker](https://railway.com/deploy/finance-tracker-1) — Private multi-user household finance ledger with budgets and CSV import. Open this page in a browser: https://railway.com/deploy/openpanel-analytics