--- title: "Deploy Stirling-PDF — Self-Hosted PDF Toolkit" description: "Self-hosted Stirling-PDF with auth, persistence, and API" category: "Other" url: https://railway.com/deploy/stirling-pdf-railw-1 --- # Deploy Stirling-PDF — Self-Hosted PDF Toolkit Self-hosted Stirling-PDF with auth, persistence, and API **[Deploy Stirling-PDF — Self-Hosted PDF Toolkit on Railway](https://railway.com/template/stirling-pdf-railw-1)** Machine-readable deploy manifest (JSON, validated by TemplateCI): https://railway.com/deploy/stirling-pdf-railw-1/manifest.json - **Creator:** Adam Reymond - **Category:** Other ## Template content ### stirling-pdf - **Source:** Timboslice212/stirling-pdf-railway - **Health check:** /api/v1/info/status - **Public domain:** Yes ## Documentation # Deploy and Host Stirling PDF with Railway Stirling PDF is a powerful self-hosted PDF toolkit with 50+ tools for merging, splitting, compressing, converting, OCR, signing, redacting, watermarking, and organizing PDF documents. This Railway template gives you a ready-to-run Stirling PDF instance with authentication, persistent storage, HTTPS, and REST API access without managing your own server or Docker infrastructure. ## About Hosting Stirling PDF Stirling PDF is a self-hosted alternative to online PDF tools and desktop PDF software. It provides a single web interface for everyday PDF workflows including merge, split, compression, OCR, conversion, signing, redaction, watermarking, page manipulation, and more. With this Railway template, Stirling PDF runs on your own Railway infrastructure. Your documents are processed by your deployed instance instead of being sent to a third-party PDF processing service. This template is configured with authentication, persistent configuration storage, a Railway health check, public HTTPS networking, and API access. ## Common Use Cases - **Private PDF processing** — Process contracts, invoices, reports, and other sensitive documents on infrastructure you control. - **Adobe Acrobat alternative** — Handle common PDF workflows with a self-hosted web application. - **OCR and document digitization** — Extract text from scanned PDFs and make documents searchable. - **Office document conversion** — Convert supported Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other documents to PDF. - **PDF automation** — Use the REST API to automate document processing from applications, scripts, and workflows. ## Dependencies for Stirling PDF Hosting - **Stirling PDF** — The core PDF application and web interface. - **Official Stirling PDF Docker image** — Used as the application runtime. - **Railway persistent volume** — Used to preserve Stirling PDF configuration and persistent application state. - **Railway HTTPS networking** — Provides public HTTPS access to the deployed application. - **Railway health checks** — Used to determine whether the Stirling PDF service is ready to receive traffic. ### Deployment Dependencies - **Stirling PDF documentation:** https://docs.stirlingpdf.com/ - **Stirling PDF GitHub repository:** https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF - **Railway documentation:** https://docs.railway.com/ ### Why Deploy Stirling PDF on Railway? Railway removes much of the infrastructure work normally required to self-host Stirling PDF. With this template, you can deploy a persistent Stirling PDF instance without manually configuring a server, Docker runtime, reverse proxy, or storage volume. Railway provides the infrastructure layer while Stirling PDF provides the PDF processing application. You get: - One-click deployment - Public HTTPS - Authentication - Persistent storage - Health checks - REST API access - Self-hosted PDF processing - Easy resource scaling through Railway ## Features - 50+ PDF tools - Merge and split PDFs - Compress and optimize PDFs - OCR for scanned documents - Convert supported documents to and from PDF - Sign and redact documents - Rotate, crop, watermark, and reorganize pages - REST API for automation - Authentication and user management - Persistent application configuration ## Privacy and Security Your documents are processed by your deployed Stirling PDF instance rather than by a third-party PDF processing SaaS. However, Railway is still cloud infrastructure. Review your organization's security, privacy, compliance, and data-retention requirements before processing regulated or highly sensitive documents. Keep authentication enabled, protect API keys, use strong credentials, and maintain backups of important persistent data. ## API Stirling PDF provides a REST API for programmatic PDF processing. You can use it with: - backend applications - automation workflows - scripts - internal business tools - document pipelines After deployment, use the API documentation exposed by your Stirling PDF instance for the exact endpoints and authentication method supported by the installed version. ## Resource Requirements PDF processing, OCR, and Office document conversion can be CPU- and memory-intensive. Start with a reasonable Railway configuration and increase CPU or memory when processing larger documents, using OCR heavily, or running multiple operations concurrently. Actual resource requirements depend on document size, processing type, and concurrency. ## Updating Stirling PDF This template uses a specific tested Stirling PDF image version instead of relying on an unpinned latest tag. Pinning the image version makes deployments more predictable. Before upgrading, back up important persistent data and test the new version. ## Persistence and Backups A persistent Railway volume is used for Stirling PDF application state and configuration. Back up important persistent data according to the requirements of your deployment. Railway persistence should not be treated as a complete disaster-recovery strategy by itself. ## Upstream Project This template deploys the existing Stirling PDF project on Railway. It does not replace or modify Stirling PDF itself. Stirling PDF: https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF Official documentation: https://docs.stirlingpdf.com/ ## Community Template This is a community-maintained Railway deployment template for Stirling PDF. It is not an official Stirling Tools product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Stirling Tools. For Stirling PDF application issues, consult the upstream project and documentation. For Railway deployment issues, use Railway's documentation and support resources. ## License Review the current Stirling PDF project and component licenses before using this template in commercial or production environments. This template provides Railway deployment configuration for the upstream Stirling PDF project and does not claim ownership of Stirling PDF. ## Similar templates - [Rocky Linux](https://railway.com/deploy/rocky-linux) — Hosted Rocky Linux 9 workspace with SSH and persistent storage. 🚀 - [Foundry Virtual Tabletop](https://railway.com/deploy/X5tR6G) — A Self-Hosted & Modern Roleplaying Platform - [Letta Code Remote](https://railway.com/deploy/letta-code-remote) — Run a Letta Code agent 24/7. No inbound ports, just deploy. Open this page in a browser: https://railway.com/deploy/stirling-pdf-railw-1