Deploy and Host Pterodactyl Panel on Railway

Pterodactyl is the open-source control panel for game servers: Minecraft (Paper, Forge, Vanilla, Bungeecord), Rust, ARK, Team Fortress 2, Garry's Mod, TeamSpeak and more, each in its own isolated container. The panel is where you and your players create servers, open the console, manage files, schedule restarts and backups, and hand out sub-user access. This template runs the official panel image, version-pinned, with MariaDB and Redis, and creates your admin account on first boot.

About Hosting Pterodactyl Panel

Pterodactyl has two parts. The Panel (this template) is the web app and API. Wings is the daemon that actually runs game servers, and it needs a Docker host of its own: a VPS or a dedicated machine. Railway hosts the panel; Wings runs on your machine and connects back to it.

Three services:

Panel: the official ghcr.io/pterodactyl/panel image (1.15.2). On every boot it waits for the database and runs migrations; on the first boot it also creates the admin from ADMIN_EMAIL, ADMIN_USERNAME and ADMIN_PASSWORD. Its volume keeps the generated settings.
MariaDB: users, servers, nodes and eggs, on a volume.
Redis: cache, sessions and the job queue.

The panel trusts Railway's proxy, so it sees HTTPS and real client addresses, and sends its logs to Railway's log view.

Common Use Cases

Host Minecraft servers for friends or a community, with a web console and file manager
Run a small game hosting business with users, sub-users and per-server limits
Manage several game machines (Wings nodes) from one panel
Give players a self-service way to restart, back up and update their servers

Dependencies for Pterodactyl Panel Hosting

An email address for the admin account
For running game servers: a Linux machine with Docker for Wings (any VPS works)

Deployment Dependencies

Implementation Details

First login:

Enter your email as ADMIN_EMAIL when you deploy.
When the Panel service is up (the first boot seeds the database, under a minute), open its Railway domain.
Log in with ADMIN_USERNAME (default admin) and the generated ADMIN_PASSWORD from the Panel's Variables tab, then change the password under Account.

Connecting a Wings node:

In the panel, go to Admin â†’ Locations and create one.
Admin â†’ Nodes â†’ Create New: the FQDN is your game machine's domain or IP, with SSL on if Wings will have a certificate.
On the machine, install Docker and Wings, then paste the config from the node's Configuration tab into /etc/pterodactyl/config.yml and start Wings.
Add allocations (IP and ports) to the node, and create your first server under Admin â†’ Servers.

Wings calls the panel at APP_URL, which is your Railway domain over HTTPS. After adding a custom domain, set APP_URL to it and update the node configs.

Settings:

Email: set up SMTP under Admin â†’ Settings â†’ Mail. Until then MAIL_MAILER=log writes emails to the log instead of sending them.
APP_TIMEZONE sets the time used for schedules.
APP_KEY encrypts node tokens and other secrets, and HASHIDS_SALT makes the short server ids. Both are generated at deploy. Never change them afterwards.

Notes and limits:

Game servers do not run on Railway; the panel alone shows nodes and servers but starts nothing until a Wings node is connected.
Login uses Pterodactyl's built-in reCAPTCHA. To use your own keys or turn it off, go to Admin â†’ Settings â†’ Advanced.
Redis keeps no data on disk. A Redis restart signs everyone out and drops queued jobs; nothing in the database is lost.

Why Deploy Pterodactyl Panel 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 Pterodactyl Panel 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.