HOSTING / LESSON 04
Railway Account Setup.
Creating your Railway account
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HOSTING / LESSON 04
Creating your Railway account
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Before you can put apps on Railway, you need an account. In this lesson you'll make one, hook it up to GitHub, and take a lil tour of the dashboard.
Signing up is simple. You can use your GitHub login, which means one less password to forget.
Open your web browser and head to railway.com. You'll land on Railway's homepage with a "Start a New Project" button.
Click the "Login" button in the top right corner, or click "Start a New Project." Either one takes you to the sign-up page.
Click "Login with GitHub." It's the easiest option because it connects your GitHub account automatically.
GitHub will ask if you want to let Railway into your account. Click "Authorize Railway."
Read the permissions GitHub shows before you authorize Railway. Grant access only to the practice repository you plan to deploy. You can add another repository later.
Railway may ask you to verify your email address. Check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link inside.
Railway gives you a free trial to start with. Here's the deal as of October 2026.
When the 30 days are up (or the $5 runs out, whichever comes first) your account drops to the Free plan, which only gives you $1 of usage credit a month. That's enough to poke around, but not enough to keep a real app running all month. For that you'll want the Hobby plan, which costs $5 a month and includes $5 of usage.
These numbers change, so check railway.com/pricing before you count on them.
Once you sign in, you'll see the Railway dashboard. Let's poke around.
The first time you log in, you'll see an empty canvas. This is where your projects will show up. It looks pretty bare, and that's on purpose. Railway likes things clean.
A project in Railway is a container for related services. A web app project might hold these.
Each project gets its own spot on the dashboard.
Up in the top right corner there's a button for creating new projects. This is where ALL the action starts, and we'll use it next lesson.
On the left side you'll see a few menu options.
Click into a project and you'll see these.
If you signed up with GitHub, you're already connected. If you used email or need to reconnect, here's how.
Click "Settings" in the left menu, or click your profile picture and pick "Settings."
Look for a section called "Connected Accounts" or "Integrations."
Click the button to connect GitHub. You'll get bounced over to GitHub to authorize the connection.
GitHub will ask which repositories Railway can see. You've got two choices.
Choose "Select repositories" and pick the practice repository you plan to deploy. Review the requested permissions before you confirm.
If Railway isn't showing your GitHub repositories, try this.
If the verification link doesn't work, here's the fix.
You can connect GitHub to the account you already have.
Let's make sure everything's ready for the next lesson.
Your account is ready to roll. Next lesson, you'll deploy your first app to Railway, and it's easier than you probably think. We'll go through every step together...