Deploy and Host RailBlog on Railway

RailBlog is a one-service blog and content-site template: Next.js 15 with Payload CMS 3 embedded in the same app — no separate CMS backend, no separate frontend deploy — backed by a single Postgres plugin. Ghost dominates Railway's Blogs category because it's a real one-click admin panel; the only "modern stack" alternatives need two or three separate services to run. RailBlog is the first entry that's actually lighter: one app, one database, one deploy.

About Hosting RailBlog

This template deploys a single Railway service running Next.js with Payload CMS mounted into its own route tree — the admin panel at /admin, the content API, and the public blog all render from the same process, with content read through Payload's in-process Local API rather than an HTTP round trip to itself. A Postgres plugin holds posts, categories, media metadata, and admin users; a Railway Volume mounted at /app/public/media persists uploaded images across redeploys.

Why Deploy RailBlog 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. Deploying RailBlog on Railway means the app, the database, and persistent media storage all live on one dashboard — no second service to provision, no API URL to keep in sync between a frontend and a CMS backend.

Common Use Cases

A blog or docs section for a product's marketing site, with a real admin UI instead of hand-edited MDX files in git.
A companion blog for a SaaS you're already building — pairs naturally with a Next.js product (including Railhead, its sibling template).
A lighter alternative to standing up Ghost or WordPress + MySQL when you'd rather own the whole stack in TypeScript.

Dependencies for RailBlog Hosting

None required to deploy — the template boots and lets you create your first admin user immediately at /admin.
Optional: CRON_SECRET if you use Payload's scheduled-publish feature from outside a logged-in session, and PREVIEW_SECRET for live/draft preview links.

Deployment Dependencies

Next.js 15 (App Router)
Payload CMS 3 (embedded, not a separate service)
Postgres via @payloadcms/db-postgres
Lexical rich text (Payload's default editor)

Full architecture and the system design document behind these decisions live in the GitHub repo. RailBlog is free and open source under LGPL-3.0 — fork it and build a proprietary blog or product on top; only changes to RailBlog itself need to stay open. Payload CMS and Next.js keep their own (MIT) licenses as dependencies.