Deploy a Bun application on Railway

Deploy a Bun application to Railway from the CLI or dashboard, with optional PostgreSQL setup and automatic SSL

Railway is an infrastructure platform: you provision infrastructure, develop against it locally, then deploy to the cloud. It deploys from GitHub with zero configuration, handles SSL automatically, and provisions databases.

This guide deploys a Bun application with an optional PostgreSQL database, the same setup the following template provides.

You can either follow this guide step-by-step or deploy the pre-configured template with one click:

Prerequisites:

A Bun application ready for deployment
A Railway account
Railway CLI (for CLI deployment method)
A GitHub account (for Dashboard deployment method)

Method 1: Deploy via CLI

Step 1

Install the Railway CLI.

terminal

$ bun install -g @railway/cli

Step 2

Log into your Railway account.

terminal

$ railway login

Step 3

After authenticating, initialize a new project.

terminal

$ railway init

Step 4

After initializing the project, add a new database and service.

Step 4 is only necessary if your application uses a database. If you don't need PostgreSQL, skip to Step 5.

terminal

# Add PostgreSQL database. Make sure to add this first!
$ railway add --database postgres

# Add your application service.
$ railway add --service bun-react-db --variables DATABASE_URL=\${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}

Step 5

After the services have been created and connected, deploy the application to Railway. By default, services are only accessible within Railway's private network, so generate a public domain to make your app publicly accessible.

terminal

# Deploy your application
$ railway up

# Generate public domain
$ railway domain

Your app is now live. Railway auto-deploys on every GitHub push.

Method 2: Deploy via Dashboard

Step 1

Create a new project

Go to Railway Dashboard
Click "+ New" → "GitHub repo"
Choose your repository

Step 2

Add a PostgreSQL database, and connect this database to the service

Step 2 is only necessary if your application uses a database. If you don't need PostgreSQL, skip to Step 3.

Click "+ New" → "Database" → "Add PostgreSQL"
After the database has been created, select your service (not the database)
Go to "Variables" tab
Click "+ New Variable" → "Add Reference"
Select DATABASE_URL from postgres

Step 3

Generate a public domain

Select your service
Go to "Settings" tab
Under "Networking", click "Generate Domain"

Your app is now live. Railway auto-deploys on every GitHub push.

Configuration (Optional)

By default, Railway uses Nixpacks to automatically detect and build your Bun application with zero configuration.

However, the Railpack application builder has better Bun support and always supports the latest version of Bun. The pre-configured templates use Railpack by default.

To enable Railpack in a custom project, add the following to your railway.json:

railway.json

{
  "$schema": "https://railway.com/railway.schema.json",
  "build": {
    "builder": "RAILPACK"
  }
}

For more build configuration settings, see the Railway documentation.

Deploy a Bun application on Railway

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