Deploy and Host

This template deploys Radicale 3.9.0 — the lightweight CalDAV/CardDAV server (calendars + contacts) — as a single hardened container on Railway with one persistent volume and zero required deploy-form prompts.

After deploying, open the service's Variables tab: the admin password is already generated per-deploy in ADMIN_PASSWORD. Log in at the web UI (your Railway domain, path /.web) as user admin, create your first calendar or address book, and connect your devices.

One-click deploy button:

Intro before the required sections: Radicale syncs calendars and contacts to phones and laptops over open CalDAV/CardDAV protocols. This template runs the hardened, digest-pinned image of Radicale 3.9.0, renders its config at boot from the runtime port, seeds a bcrypt-protected htpasswd file on first boot only, and stores everything in the /data volume.

About Hosting

Hosting Radicale yourself means your calendars and contacts live in plain, standard files on your volume — no vendor lock-in, no third-party sync service reading your data. The template provisions:

One service — Radicale 3.9.0 (non-root at runtime, Railway terminates TLS at the edge).
One volume mounted at /data — collections, and the htpasswd users file, all persist across deploys and restarts.
Zero required variables — ADMIN_PASSWORD is pre-filled with a per-deploy generated secret; nothing to type at deploy time.
Auth is HTTP basic over bcrypt (htpasswd), and every user only sees their own collections.

Rough sizing: Radicale idles under ~50 MB RAM; a personal calendar library is a few MB. The default volume size is far more than a personal account ever needs.

Why Deploy

Instant private sync: deploy, open the Variables tab, copy your password, add the account in Apple Calendar, Thunderbird, or DAVx⁵ — done in under five minutes.
Zero-prompt deploy: unlike deploying Radicale manually (writing config files, htpasswd entries, ownership), this template boots fully configured: port rendering, bcrypt seeding, volume ownership and privilege drop are all handled at boot.
Hardened upstream image: digest-pinned tomsquest/docker-radicale:3.9.0.0, runs as a non-root user, includes brute-force login delay.
Standard protocols: CalDAV (events, tasks) and CardDAV (contacts) with native /.well-known/caldav and /.well-known/cardav redirects — clients discover everything from the root URL.
Your data, portable: collections are plain iCalendar (.ics) and vCard (.vcf) files on the volume — copy them anywhere.

Common Use Cases

Private calendar sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android and Thunderbird without iCloud or Google.
Shared family/team contacts — add a user per person (one ssh command), each sees only their own address books and calendars.
Todo.txt-style task sync — tasks are CalDAV VTODOs; pair with clients that support them (e.g. Thunderbird, DAVx⁵-based task apps).
Backup target for busy calendars — many calendar apps and booking tools speak CalDAV; point them at your own server.
Self-hosted replacement for a paid DAV host — one small Railway service and volume instead of a monthly subscription.

Dependencies for

Deployment Dependencies

Railway account — the template provisions one service plus one volume; no external database or other services are needed.
No required variables — ADMIN_PASSWORD (admin password) is auto-generated per deploy as a Railway secret reference and surfaced in the Variables tab; PORT is injected by the platform automatically.
A CalDAV/CardDAV client for everyday use: Apple Calendar, Thunderbird, DAVx⁵, or any CalDAV-capable app. Client URLs and step-by-step setup live in the repository README.
Upstream software: Radicale 3.9.0 (GPLv3+) via the hardened tomsquest/docker-radicale container image (MIT); licenses are collected in NOTICE.md in the repository.