Deploy and Host YOURLS-MySQL with plugins on Railway

YOURLS is a powerful set of PHP scripts that empowers you to run Your Own URL Shortener, on your server. With YOURLS, you have complete control over your links, detailed statistics, plugin support, and more, all wrapped in a free and open-source package.

This improved Docker image bundles YOURLS with the expiry plugin preinstalled.

About Hosting YOURLS-MySQL with plugins

Post deployment actions [IMPORTANT!]

Railway currently fails to identify the correct port of the application, to fix this issue wait until the YOURLS service is deployed, navigate to Settings > Network > Edit the public domain to redirect to port 80.

After this you can navigate to your public domain + /admin to install the application.

The admin user and password are available as environment variables (YOURLS_USER, YOURLS_PASS).

To use your own domain for link generation, set YOURLS_HOST to that domain and redeploy the service.

Common Use Cases

Generate branded short URLs and track click analytics in real time.
Simplify complex, parameter-rich links for sharing in emails, social posts, or SMS campaigns.
Create time-limited or quota-limited promo links using the Expiry plugin.

Dependencies for YOURLS-MySQL with plugins Hosting

Deployment Dependencies

YOURLS Official Site: https://yourls.org/
YOURLS Docker Hub: https://hub.docker.com/_/yourls/
Expiry plugin by joshp23: https://github.com/joshp23/YOURLS-Expiry

Why Deploy YOURLS-MySQL with plugins 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 YOURLS-MySQL with plugins 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.