Self-hosting Convex with Railway.com

Instructions for railway self-hosting is community maintained. For help, please join the community discord. Thanks to orenaksakal for the work in putting the instructions together.

Deploying to Railway.com

You can view the ready to deploy template here

• Convex + SQLite
• Convex + Postgres
• Convex + Mysql

or use one click deploy buttons below:

Convex + SQLite

Convex + Postgres

Convex + Mysql

Setup

The template comes with pre-configured env-variables and you need to follow some setup steps to make it fully work.

1. Deploying the template
2. Generating admin key with railway ssh

Steps:

1. Deploying the template

   Just deploy the template and enjoy. 🚀

   ℹ️ (Optional): If you would like to separete api and http domains follow steps below:

   • Select convex-backend service
   • Select Settings tab and scroll to Public Networking section
   • Hover on the domain and click on edit or delete buttons
   • Click on Generate Domain for auto generated one or Custom Domain if you want to setup custom domain
   • Make sure to select port 3210 and add your domain for convex (api) url and select port 3211 for http (action) routes
   • Re-deploy both convex-dashboard and convex-backend services

2. Generating admin key with railway ssh

   Follow these instructions to setup railway SSH on your machine

   • Link your convex deployment project
   • Run railway ssh and select convex-backend when prompted
   • Run ls and then ./generate_admin_key.sh
   • Copy the whole admin key logged on the screen
   • This is your admin key keep it secret

HTTP Actions

Note that HTTP actions run on your railway app url under the /http path. For example:

• If your railway app is deployed at https://self-hosted-backend.railway.app
• And you have an HTTP action routed to /sendEmail
• You would call it at https://self-hosted-backend.railway.app/http/sendEmail

Database

If you deployed SQLite template, your data is stored in local SQLite file and your files are stored in the Railway volume. You can see them in the data folder if you run:

railway ssh
ls

To store your data in a SQL database of your choice, see these instructions.

Accessing the deployed dashboard

The dashboard allows you to see logs, read/write data, run functions, and more. You can run the dashboard locally with Docker, or deploy it to Railway.

• Head over to your railway app
• Select convex-dashboard
• Visit its public url
• Paste the admin key when prompted
• Enjoy

Running the dashboard locally

docker run -e 'NEXT_PUBLIC_DEPLOYMENT_URL=<backend-url>' -p '6791:6791' 'ghcr.io/get-convex/convex-dashboard:latest'

Deploying your frontend app

See these instructions.

Troubleshooting

• Performance issues: The default railway configuration allocates the minimum possible resources to get up and running. If your app has high load, you may see ratelimiting from railway and poor performance. We recommend increasing your memory and CPU.
• Running out of disk space: The hobby railway configuration allocates 5GB to the convex_data volume where your SQLite database and storage lives. If you run out of space, you can increase the volume to 50GB by upgrading plan.
• If you need more help feel free to join our discord community discord