Deploy and Host WordPress with MariaDB on Railway

WordPress is an open-source content management system used to build blogs, business websites, and online stores. This template deploys WordPress (PHP 8.3 + Apache) together with a MariaDB 12.3 LTS database, each with its own persistent volume.

About Hosting WordPress

Hosting WordPress means running a PHP web server and a MySQL-compatible database, and keeping both the site files and the data safe across restarts and redeploys. This template runs both as separate Railway services connected over the private network. WordPress core, themes, plugins, and uploads are stored in a persistent volume, and the database lives in its own persistent volume.

Common Use Cases

Personal blogs and company websites
Content sites and documentation portals
Small online stores (for example with WooCommerce)
Staging and test sites for themes and plugins

Dependencies for WordPress Hosting

This template needs two services, both deployed from the same GitHub repository: WordPress (official wordpress:php8.3-apache image) and MariaDB (official mariadb:12.3.3 LTS image). Each service uses its own persistent volume, and no external accounts or API keys are required.

Deployment Dependencies

WordPress: official Docker image wordpress:php8.3-apache
MariaDB: official Docker image mariadb:12.3.3 (LTS)
WordPress documentation: https://wordpress.org/documentation/
MariaDB documentation: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/

Implementation Details

WordPress files persist at /var/www/html, and database files persist at /var/lib/mysql.
Database passwords and WordPress security keys and salts are generated automatically for each deployment.
The database is only reachable over Railway's private network, never from the public internet.
WORDPRESS_CONFIG_EXTRA makes WordPress detect HTTPS correctly behind Railway's proxy.
wp-config.php is created once on first start, so later changes to WORDPRESS_* variables do not update it automatically.
Run a single replica of each service, since volumes cannot be shared between instances.

Why Deploy WordPress 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 WordPress 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.