Deploy and Host self hosted OpenSEO AI Visibility (Self-Hosted AI Answer Visibility Tracking) on Railway

This template runs OpenSEO on Railway so you can check whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews mention your brand, cite your site or name competitors instead.

About Hosting OpenSEO AI Visibility open-source software on Railway (self hosted tracking brand mentions and citations in AI answers template)

This template runs two services on Railway: OpenSEO, which holds the AI Visibility workflow and its saved data in a volume at /app/.wrangler, and a Caddy gateway that is the only public service and handles the admin login.

Why Deploy OpenSEO AI Visibility, the Profound alternative on Railway (Railway Free Trial)

Profound is a paid SaaS, and its pricing is outside what we can quote here, so check its current plans first.

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 OpenSEO AI Visibility 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.

Railway vs Other Hosting Providers and VPS for OpenSEO AI Visibility self hosting

Railway trades some raw control for a faster path to a running tracker. Costs and setup time will vary with your plan.

Provider	What You Get with Railway	What You Get with the Other Provider
DigitalOcean	Both services deploy from the template, and the Gateway handles the login.	A cheap Droplet, but you install Docker and keep the proxy and TLS current yourself.
AWS	Two services come up in minutes with no VPC or IAM work.	Deep control, but setup and ongoing ops take more time than most SEO teams want.
Hetzner	A managed deploy with a volume for app state and no server to babysit.	Very low raw compute prices, but you handle the OS, backups, and uptime.

Common Use Cases for hosted OpenSEO AI Visibility

Checking category questions in ChatGPT: Save the exact questions buyers ask and run a weekly check to see if ChatGPT names your brand. A missing mention is a data point, not proof you're absent.
Finding competitors AI names instead of you: Competitors come from your shared project context, so set that up first. You'll see which rivals keep showing up where you should be.
Monitoring citations in Perplexity and Google AI Overviews: Tracking records whether your domain is linked, which is different from a plain mention. Watch those counts after you publish or update a guide.
Building a question list from Prompt Research: A seed keyword returns questions people ask, drawn mostly from DataForSEO's "People also ask" data rather than logged ChatGPT prompts. It covers US English only.
Reviewing trend charts after a content change: The chart plots the latest finished run per day, manual and scheduled alike. Compare the weeks before and after an update to see if mentions moved.

Dependencies for OpenSEO AI Visibility Docker hosted on Railway

This template runs two services, and only the Gateway is reachable from the internet. Most setup questions come down to which service a variable belongs on.

Deployment Dependencies for Managed OpenSEO AI Visibility Service (SEO Tool)

You need a DataForSEO account, since that is where the AI Visibility data comes from. Attach a volume to OpenSEO at /app/.wrangler for the database and agent state.

Implementation Details for OpenSEO AI Visibility (Using OpenSEO official docker image)

OpenSEO uses AUTH_MODE=local_noauth, CLOUDFLARE_INCLUDE_PROCESS_ENV=true, and PORT=3001, with ALLOWED_HOST set to .railway.app and a generated BETTER_AUTH_SECRET.

How does OpenSEO AI Visibility compare against other ways to track brand visibility in AI answers

OpenSEO AI Visibility vs Profound (Profound Alternative)

Where it's lighter: OpenSEO's AI Visibility workflow checks whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews mention your brand or cite your site, on your own Railway project.
Where you pay in time: You set up the API keys, the DataForSEO account and the gateway login yourself, and the project is early (v0.1.x).
Where Profound wins: It's a managed platform with its own support, so if you want someone else to run monitoring, it's the easier path.

OpenSEO AI Visibility vs Otterly.ai (Otterly.ai Alternative)

Where it's different: Otterly.ai is hosted SaaS, while OpenSEO keeps prompts, answers and trend data on servers you control.
Where you carry the cost: Checks bill against your DataForSEO credits, and Claude and Perplexity cost more per answer because they call live model APIs.
Where Otterly.ai wins: It needs no API accounts or environment variables, so a marketer can start tracking in minutes.

OpenSEO AI Visibility vs Semrush (Semrush Alternative)

Where Semrush is broader: It's a closed SaaS SEO suite with a large proprietary database, much wider than OpenSEO's documented checks.
Where OpenSEO fits: It's MIT-licensed and self-hosted, so you skip a monthly subscription and keep tracking data in your own project.
Where it's weaker: Results come from prompts you choose plus DataForSEO data, so you won't get Semrush's market-wide research depth.

OpenSEO AI Visibility vs Ahrefs (Ahrefs Alternative)

Where Ahrefs is stronger: It's a closed SaaS suite known for backlink data, which OpenSEO's AI visibility checks don't try to replace.
Where OpenSEO fits: You pay DataForSEO per request, so cost follows your actual check volume rather than a fixed monthly plan.
Where you should still check: A failed check doesn't prove your brand is absent from an answer, so re-run it before drawing conclusions.

How to use OpenSEO AI Visibility (the OSS SEO platform)?

Open the Gateway service's public domain and sign in as admin with OPENSEO_PASSWORD from the Gateway Variables tab.
Add your website in OpenSEO so the project has a domain to check mentions and citations against.
Complete setup on the AI visibility pages. Research fills missing context but won't run paid prompts for each keyword.
Set DATAFORSEO_API_KEY and OPENROUTER_API_KEY on the OpenSEO service. The DataForSEO value is base64 of login:API password.
Run Prompt Research on a keyword to pull the questions people ask.
Save exact questions under a topic in Prompt Tracking, pick engines and a market, then run a check or enable tracking.
To connect an assistant, point it at https://your-domain/mcp with an Authorization: Basic header.

claude mcp add --transport http openseo https://your-domain/mcp --header "Authorization: Basic BASE64_OF_ADMIN_COLON_PASSWORD"

How to self host OpenSEO AI Visibility on other VPS Services (OpenSEO self hosting guide)

OpenSEO runs on any Linux box with Docker, and AI Visibility is part of the same app. Keep the app private behind your own auth-protected proxy or tunnel.

Clone the Repository

Clone the upstream project and move into it.

git clone https://github.com/every-app/open-seo.git
cd open-seo

Install Dependencies

The project ships a Docker setup, so you only need Docker and the Compose plugin on the host.

docker --version
docker compose version

Configure Environment Variables

Copy the example file and set your DataForSEO key. Use the base64 of login:API password, not the dashboard key.

cp .env.example .env
printf 'you@example.com:API_PASSWORD' | base64
# put the output into DATAFORSEO_API_KEY in .env
# ALLOWED_HOST=your-domain

Start the OpenSEO AI Visibility Application

Start the stack in the background and keep port 3001 behind your proxy.

docker compose up -d

Your host handles the server and network, while Railway handles builds, hosting, and networking for you.

Official Pricing of OpenSEO AI Visibility (OpenSEO pricing)

OpenSEO is open source under the MIT license, and self hosting it is free. What you do pay is infrastructure and usage.

OpenSEO AI Visibility cloud vs self hosted comparison (Pricing, features, costs, and more)

Hosted and self hosted setups run the same AI Visibility workflow, so the difference is who pays for what and where the data lives.

Monthly cost of self hosting OpenSEO AI Visibility on Railway

Expect roughly $5 to $15 a month on Railway for the OpenSEO service and the gateway at light use.

System Requirements for Hosting OpenSEO AI Visibility on a VPS

The app builds itself at boot on Node 22 with workerd, and memory peaks around 4 GB during that build before settling near 0.7 GB while idle.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Does this track rankings inside AI answers, or only mentions and citations?

It tracks whether your brand is mentioned, whether your site is cited, and which competitors appear in the answer.

Why did a check fail, and does that mean my brand is absent?

No.

Why don't my saved answers match the new wording I edited?

Editing a question's wording starts a new question. Earlier answers keep the wording they were collected for, so compare new results only against new runs.

How much does a check cost, and why is Run now pricier?

Tracking shows a cost estimate before a check or schedule starts. "Run now" usually returns within a minute and costs more per answer than scheduled checks, and checks stop when your credits run out.

Why do Claude and Perplexity cost more to check?

Neither has consumer-site collection, so every check asks their model API at live API pricing, which costs more per answer.

Where do the Prompt Research questions come from?

They come from DataForSEO's dataset, mostly Google "People also ask" questions.