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Deploy a Hono App

deploymenthonojavascriptbackend

Hono is a lightweight, ultrafast web framework built for any JavaScript runtime, including Node.js, Bun, Deno, and Cloudflare Workers.

This guide covers how to deploy a Hono app on Railway in three ways:

  1. From a GitHub repository.
  2. Using the CLI.
  3. Using a Dockerfile.

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

Deploy from a GitHub repo

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

  1. Create a Hono app that uses the Node.js adapter (@hono/node-server).
    • If you already have a GitHub repo you want to deploy, you can skip this step.
    • Make sure your app reads the port from process.env.PORT with a fallback (e.g., 3000).
  2. Create a New Project.
  3. Click Deploy from GitHub repo.
  4. Select your Hono 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: Railpack will detect your Node.js app and build it automatically. If you need more control over the build, you can also use Nixpacks or a Dockerfile.

Deploy from the CLI

  1. Install and authenticate with the CLI.
  2. Navigate to your Hono app 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 your Hono app files to Railway's backend for deployment.

Use a Dockerfile

  1. Navigate to your Hono app 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 app's root directory.

  3. Add the content below to the Dockerfile:

  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 more about Railway: