Deploy and Host OpenSEO (Self-Hosted) on Railway

OpenSEO is an open-source SEO platform for keyword research, rank tracking, backlink and competitor analysis, site audits, and AI visibility. It includes an MCP server so AI agents can work with your SEO data. This template runs a personal OpenSEO workspace on Railway with persistent storage, protected browser access, and a public HTTPS domain.

About Hosting OpenSEO (Self-Hosted)

Hosting OpenSEO (Self-Hosted) on Railway gives you a straightforward way to run your own SEO workspace without building the deployment from scratch. This template packages OpenSEO and its access gateway in one service, mounts persistent storage at /data, and configures the public domain and healthcheck. The application is compiled before deployment, so Railway can start it without a build. It is a practical starting point for people who want to keep projects, keyword lists, audits, and rank history on their own infrastructure. Railway handles the container, networking, restarts, and volume persistence so you can focus on your SEO work.

Common Use Cases

Running a personal SEO workspace with your own DataForSEO account.
Managing keyword research, site audits, and rank tracking from one application.
Connecting Claude Code, Codex, or another AI agent to OpenSEO's MCP tools.

Dependencies for OpenSEO (Self-Hosted) Hosting

Persistent storage mounted at /data.
Public HTTPS domain for browser and MCP access.
A DataForSEO account for features that query live SEO data.

Deployment Dependencies

Implementation Details

This template uses an image based on the official OpenSEO image, with the application prebuilt and Caddy included for authentication. Projects and application state remain on the persistent volume across redeployments. No separate database or cache service is required.

After deployment, reveal ACCESS_PASSWORD in the OpenSEO service's Variables tab and open its public domain. Sign in with ACCESS_USERNAME, which defaults to admin, and the generated password. Everyone with this credential shares one administrator workspace; the template does not create separate user accounts.

DATAFORSEO_API_KEY is optional when deploying. Set it to the base64 encoding of your DataForSEO API login and API password in login:password format to enable live SEO data. Data queries are billed by DataForSEO. Site audits can run before this credential is configured.

For MCP access, use the service's HTTPS URL followed by /mcp and configure your client to send Authorization: Bearer . Additional integration setup and image details are documented in the template repository.

Why Deploy OpenSEO (Self-Hosted) 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 OpenSEO (Self-Hosted) 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.