Self-hosting guides

Practical guides to self-hosting open-source apps on Railway: AI chat, AI search, PDF tools, whiteboards, and how one-click templates work.

Kit the box mascot cranks a funnel machine that turns a flurry of web pages into one green answer card with its source pages attached

Build a self-hosted Perplexity alternative with Morphic, SearXNG and Firecrawl

Self-host an AI answer engine with cited sources. Compare Morphic, Open DeepResearch and Fireplexity, and add private search with SearXNG or Whoogle.Oct 4, 2026 · 4 min read

Kit the box mascot draws a box on a whiteboard while a green cursor draws a second box, their arrows meeting in the middle

How to self-host Excalidraw with real-time collaboration

Run your own Excalidraw whiteboard with live, end-to-end encrypted collaboration on Railway. Covers how the two services fit together, setup, and common fixes.Oct 4, 2026 · 4 min read

Kit the box mascot holds its lid open and files a green chat bubble inside itself, next to a queue of empty speech bubbles

Self-hosted ChatGPT alternatives: Open WebUI vs LibreChat vs big-AGI

Compare three open-source ChatGPT-style interfaces you can self-host on Railway, where each one stores your chats, and which to pick for you or your team.Oct 4, 2026 · 4 min read

Kit the box mascot pulls down the lever of a desk press that turns a messy pile of pages into one neat clipped document

Self-hosted PDF tools: Stirling-PDF vs PDFDing vs Paperless-AI

Edit, organise and auto-tag PDFs without uploading them to online converters. A practical comparison of three self-hosted PDF tools you can deploy on Railway.Oct 4, 2026 · 4 min read

Kit the box mascot presses a big green button and its lid pops open as a database, a gear and a globe rise out of it

What happens when you click Deploy: a guide to Railway templates

A plain-English guide to one-click Railway templates. Required keys, generated secrets, volumes, custom domains, updates and keeping costs low.Oct 4, 2026 · 5 min read