Self-hosted installation

This guide covers self-hosting Road To with Docker, from pulling the image to updating an existing instance. For pricing and licensing, see the Pricing page.

Prerequisites

Docker and Docker Compose (v2) installed on your server
At least 1 vCPU and 2 GB of RAM
A domain name (optional, recommended with a TLS reverse proxy in front of the app service)

Download

Pull the official Road To Docker image, published on Docker Hub as baptman87/road-to-next (multi-arch amd64/arm64):

docker pull baptman87/road-to-next

The self-hosted stack references this image by default through the ROADTO_IMAGE variable in docker-compose.selfhost.yml:

services:
  app:
    image: ${ROADTO_IMAGE:-baptman87/road-to-next:latest}

Run the compose stack

Fetch docker-compose.selfhost.yml and .env.example from the Road To repository.
Copy the environment file:

cp .env.example .env

Fill in the required variables (see next section), then start the stack:

docker compose -f docker-compose.selfhost.yml up -d

The stack starts three services: app (Road To), postgres (PostgreSQL 17) and redis (Redis 7). The app service waits for postgres and redis to be healthy before starting.

Configure the `.env`

The .env file (based on .env.example) configures the application and the database. Main variables:

Variable	Description
`POSTGRES_PASSWORD`	PostgreSQL password — required, no default value
`POSTGRES_USER` / `POSTGRES_DB`	PostgreSQL user and database (default: `roadto`)
`BETTER_AUTH_URL`	Public URL of the instance (e.g. `https://roadto.yourdomain.com`)
`BETTER_AUTH_SECRET`	Session secret — generate with `openssl rand -base64 32`
`APP_PORT`	Port exposed on the host (default `3000`)
`RESEND_API_KEY` / `EMAIL_FROM`	Transactional email delivery (required)
`GEMINI_API_KEY` / `AI_CHAT_HMAC_SECRET`	AI assistant and template generation (optional)
`GITHUB_CLIENT_ID` / `GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET`, `GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID` / `GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET`	OAuth sign-in (optional)

DATABASE_URL, DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED and REDIS_URL are built automatically by docker-compose.selfhost.yml from the postgres and redis services — do not set them manually in compose mode.

Automatic migrations

No manual database step is required: the image automatically applies Prisma migrations when the app container starts (entrypoint prisma migrate deploy), once postgres is ready.

First start

Once the stack is up, the application is available at http://localhost:${APP_PORT:-3000} (or the URL configured via BETTER_AUTH_URL behind your reverse proxy). Create your first account and organization from the sign-up screen.

Updating an instance

To update an existing instance to the latest image version:

docker compose -f docker-compose.selfhost.yml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.selfhost.yml up -d

Prisma migrations are automatically reapplied when the app container restarts, with no manual step.