Deploy a Fastify App

Fastify is a high-performance, low-overhead web framework for Node.js, designed to deliver an exceptional developer experience.

This guide covers how to deploy a Fastify app on Railway in four ways:

1. One-click deploy from a template.
2. From a GitHub repository.
3. Using the CLI.
4. Using a Dockerfile.

One-Click Deploy from a Template

We highly recommend that you eject from the template after deployment to create a copy of the repo on your GitHub account.

Note: You can also choose from a variety of Fastify app templates created by the community.

Deploy from a GitHub Repo

To deploy a Fastify app on Railway directly from GitHub, follow the steps below:

1. Fork the basic fastify GitHub repo.
   • If you already have a GitHub repo you want to deploy, you can skip this step.
2. Create a New Project.
3. Click Deploy from GitHub repo.
4. Select the fastify repo or your own GitHub repo.
   • Railway requires a valid GitHub account to be linked. If your Railway account isn't associated with one, you will be prompted to link it.
5. Click Deploy Now.

Once the deployment is successful, a Railway service will be created for you. By default, this service will not be publicly accessible.

To set up a publicly accessible URL for the service, navigate to the Networking section in the Settings tab of your new service and click on Generate Domain.

Note: Railway requires that Fastify's .listen method for the host be set to ::. This allows the app to be available over the public and private network. You can find this in the sample Fastify GitHub repo.

If you don’t set it correctly, you may encounter a 502 error page.

Deploy from the CLI

1. Install and authenticate with the CLI.
2. Clone the forked fastify GitHub repo and cd into the directory.
   • You can skip this step if you already have an app directory or repo on your machine that you want to deploy.
3. Run railway init within the app directory to create a new project.
4. Run railway up to deploy.
   • The CLI will now scan, compress and upload our fastify app files to Railway's backend for deployment.

Use a Dockerfile

1. Clone the forked fastify repo and cd into the directory.
   • You can skip this step if you already have an app directory or repo on your machine that you want to deploy.
2. Create a Dockerfile in the fastify or app's root directory.
3. Add the content below to the Dockerfile:

   # Use the Node.js 18 alpine official image
   # https://hub.docker.com/_/node
   FROM node:18-alpine
   
   # Create and change to the app directory.
   WORKDIR /app
   
   # Copy local code to the container image.
   COPY . .
   
   # Install project dependencies
   RUN npm ci
   
   # Run the web service on container startup.
   CMD ["npm", "start"]
4. Either deploy via the CLI or from GitHub.

Railway automatically detects the Dockerfile, and uses it to build and deploy the app.

Note: Railway supports also deployment from public and private Docker images.

Next Steps

Explore these resources to learn how you can maximize your experience with Railway:

• Add a CDN using Amazon CloudFront to your Fastify app
• Add a Database Service
• Monitor your app