Firefly III on Google Cloud Run
Firefly III is a free, open-source, AGPL-licensed self-hosted personal-finance manager. It tracks accounts, transactions, budgets, bills, categories, and recurring transactions, and exposes a full REST API. This module deploys Firefly III on Cloud Run v2 on top of the App_CloudRun foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud infrastructure.
This guide focuses on the cloud services Firefly III uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics common to every Cloud Run application — service identity, ingress and load balancing, scaling and concurrency, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_CloudRun foundation guide rather than repeating them here.
What Firefly III costs on RAD, and how that compares
In a Google Cloud project you own, Firefly III on RAD's Cloud Run module costs about US$84 a month, plus US$7.50 once per deployment and no per-user licence. GKE Autopilot is the alternative for workloads that must stay up continuously or run beside other Kubernetes apps; see the GKE guide, about US$110 a month. Firefly III is a free, open-source personal finance manager with double-entry bookkeeping, budgets and rule-based transaction classification. Figures are as at 8 October 2026; sources are listed at the end of this section.
If this runs in a project RAD manages for you, it can be deleted and restored within 30 days for a few credits instead of sitting there running — so an occasional-use deployment costs a few dollars a month, not US$84. See Pause it for free, below.
What you pay on RAD
| In a Google Cloud project you own | In a project RAD manages for you | |
|---|---|---|
| Module fee, once per deployment | 75 credits (US$7.50 at the top-up price) | 67.5 credits (10% lower) |
| Build time | A few credits per build | The same |
| Google Cloud running cost | Billed by Google to your own billing account, about US$84 a month for the default configuration (table below) | Metered hourly in credits; RAD publishes 32 credits a day, about 960 a month (about US$96 at the top-up price) |
| Who owns what | You own the project and its billing; RAD deploys and updates it | RAD owns the project, with guardrails, quotas and budget alerts; you get console access, and a minimum purchased balance is held in reserve |
10 credits cost US$1 on a one-off top-up, and less on a monthly plan. In a project RAD manages, the database, file server and network are shared by every application in the project, so a second application does not add a second database.
Default running cost in your own project (us-central1, Google list prices):
| Resource (module default) | Per month |
|---|---|
| Cloud Run, 1 vCPU / 2 GiB, scaling to zero | US$13 |
| Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD | US$51 |
| NFS/cache file server: a small VM | US$13 |
| Cloud NAT gateway and IP address | US$5 |
| Cloud Storage for backups | US$1 |
| Total | about US$84 |
How it compares
We could not find a commercial managed/SaaS plan specifically for Firefly III itself as at 8 October 2026, so the honest comparison is against running it yourself:
| Option | Per month | Who runs it |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner CPX22 (2 vCPU/4GB) | ~US$24 | You: OS, updates, backups, security patches |
| DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4GB Droplet | US$24 | You: OS, updates, backups, security patches |
| GCP Compute Engine e2-standard-2 (2 vCPU/8GB) | ~US$49 | You: OS, updates, backups, security patches |
| RAD, Cloud Run, your own project | US$84, plus US$7.50 once | RAD's automation, in your project |
| RAD, GKE Autopilot | about US$110; see the GKE Autopilot guide | RAD |
Firefly III's own footprint here (1 vCPU / 2 GiB) is lighter than that reference box, so a smaller, cheaper tier from the same providers would comfortably run it too.
- RAD is usually not cheaper in cash than a bare VPS — the difference is what is managed for you. A VPS price does not include the admin's own time for backups, security patches and OS upgrades; RAD's managed Cloud SQL (where this app uses a database), Secret Manager and monitoring cover that instead.
- Firefly III is a free, open-source personal finance manager with double-entry bookkeeping, budgets and rule-based transaction classification. That shapes which column matters: predictable, hands-off operation is worth more to most teams running this kind of tool than shaving a few dollars off the monthly bill.
Pause it for free: delete a RAD-managed project, restore it when you need it
If Firefly III runs in a project RAD manages for you, you have an option beyond scaling down: delete the whole project, and restore it within 30 days for close to nothing. This suits a deployment you only need occasionally — studying for a certification, a demo, a seasonal need — far better than running it continuously.
- How it works. Deleting a RAD-managed project unlinks its billing first, then asks Google to delete the project. Google does not remove it immediately: it keeps it, recoverable, for 30 days, and because billing is already unlinked, nothing is charged while it waits. Unlike deleting one module, this does not tear down Cloud SQL, the VM or Cloud Run one by one — the whole project, and everything in it, simply stops.
- Restoring costs a handful of credits, not a rebuild. Within 30 days, the project's owner can restore it. RAD asks Google to undelete the project and reattaches its billing account, then asks you to run Update on each deployment to confirm everything came back. Because nothing was individually destroyed, that Update finds the same resources already there — it is a check, not a rebuild, and an Update never charges the module fee again. That costs a handful of build-time credits in total (under US$1) for a typical 2–3-deployment chain.
- So a month of occasional use can cost a few dollars, not US$84. Deploy Firefly III, use it for a session, delete the project. Restore it next time you want it, confirm with Update, and delete it again when you're done. You pay only for the module fee once, the builds, and whatever hours it was actually live.
- What this needs. You must own the project (not a bring-your-own one RAD only manages billing for), and you restore it yourself within the 30 days — after that, Google deletes it for good. Restoring is admitted like creating a new project: your purchased credit balance must still clear the tier's floor (100 credits for the sandbox tier most study/demo use fits). Google says most services are fully working again within 36 hours of a restore.
- One real gap: nightly backups do not survive. Backups are written to a bucket inside the project, and that bucket has Cloud Storage's soft-delete explicitly turned off, so it is very likely gone as soon as you delete the project — even though the project itself is recoverable for 30 days. If you've customised this deployment and want to keep that work, copy a backup out (to Google Drive, or a bucket outside the project) before deleting. For a default install with nothing irreplaceable in it, this does not matter.
Pay only while you use it, the other way: delete and redeploy
Cloud Run already scales to zero between requests, so most of its own compute cost stops on its own when nobody is using it. The option above only applies to a RAD-managed project; in your own project, or once the 30-day window has passed, the way to stop paying is to delete the deployment and deploy it again when you need it.
- What a redeploy costs. The module fee again plus the builds: about 80 credits (US$8). Deleting saves money if Firefly III would otherwise sit unused for about 3 days or more in your own project (about US$2.79 a day), or about 3 days or more in a RAD-managed one (32 credits a day).
- Delete everything Firefly III uses. Most of the running cost is usually the database and any shared file/cache VM. They stop only when nothing else in the project uses them, so deleting this app while something else shares the project saves only this app's own compute part.
- Keep data first. Nightly backups go to a bucket inside the deployment and are deleted with it, so copy the latest backup out before deleting if you want to keep it.
- Note your settings. RAD does not recreate a deleted deployment for you; you enter the settings again when you deploy.
Lab sessions and Managed Environments
- Lab sessions, for training. A trainer runs a session for a class. Each participant gets Firefly III in their own Google Cloud project for 15 minutes to 24 hours, within an allowance the trainer sets. Either the trainer funds every place, or each participant pays for their own. Everything is deleted when the session ends and unused credits go back to the trainer.
- Managed Environments, for consultancies. A partner runs the app for a client from a ring-fenced wallet it funds, and settles with the client directly. If the wallet runs low, billing pauses and the data is kept, so nobody receives an unexpected charge. At the end the partner hands the project over and the deployments become the client's own.
Credits can be bought in more than 20 currencies, including XAF, XOF, NGN, GHS, KES and ZAR, by card, bank transfer or mobile money.
Sources (8 October 2026): Google Cloud list prices from the Cloud Billing Catalog API; RAD's own fees and daily-credit estimate from radmodules.dev/pricing; Delete and restore projects for the pause/restore mechanism. Prices change; check each source before relying on a figure.
1. Overview
Firefly III runs as a Laravel/PHP container (Apache) on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:
| Capability | Google Cloud service | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | Cloud Run v2 | PHP/Apache service, 1 vCPU / 2 GiB by default, serverless autoscaling; scale-to-zero supported |
| Database | Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 | Fixed engine — DB_CONNECTION = pgsql; MySQL is not used |
| Object storage | Cloud Storage | A dedicated fireflyiii-uploads bucket provisioned automatically |
| Persistent files | Filestore (NFS, optional) | Attachments and runtime data mounted at /var/lib/fireflyiii |
| Secrets | Secret Manager | Auto-generated Laravel APP_KEY and STATIC_CRON_TOKEN; database password |
| Ingress | Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing | Default run.app URL; optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain |
Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:
- PostgreSQL 15 is mandatory. The database engine is fixed by the shared
application layer; Firefly connects over the Cloud SQL private IP via TCP with
PGSQL_SSL_MODE = require(Cloud SQL rejects unencrypted private-IP TCP). APP_KEYis generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager. This Laravel key encrypts sensitive fields at rest and must never be rotated after first boot — rotating it makes previously encrypted data unreadable.STATIC_CRON_TOKENis generated automatically. Firefly does no background scheduling on its own; a caller must hitGET /api/v1/cron/<STATIC_CRON_TOKEN>to run recurring transactions, bill reminders, and auto-budgets. The module ships a built-infirefly-cronjob that does this daily at 03:00 UTC; anycron_jobsyou add run alongside it.- Scale-to-zero is enabled by default (
min_instance_count = 0). Cold starts add 10–30 seconds of latency to the first request after idle. Setmin_instance_count = 1to keep the service warm. - First run is
/register. No admin is pre-seeded — the first account created becomes the owner/administrator. Disable open registration afterward in Administration → Settings. - NFS is enabled by default to persist uploaded attachments and runtime data at
/var/lib/fireflyiiiacross cold starts and revisions; requires the gen2 execution environment. - Redis is off by default. Firefly III uses the database for cache and queue; a single instance needs no external Redis.
2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them
All commands assume PROJECT and REGION are set. Service and resource names are
reported in the deployment Outputs.
A. Cloud Run — the Firefly III service
Firefly III runs as a Cloud Run v2 service that autoscales by request load between the minimum and maximum instance counts. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts.
- Console: Cloud Run → select the service for revisions, traffic, logs, and metrics.
- CLI:
gcloud run services list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
gcloud run services describe <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
gcloud run revisions list --service <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
See App_CloudRun for scaling, concurrency, execution environment, and traffic splitting.
B. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15
Firefly III stores all application data (accounts, transactions, budgets, bills,
rules, users) in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance. On Cloud Run the
service connects over the instance private IP via TCP with TLS required
(PGSQL_SSL_MODE = require); no public IP is exposed. On first deploy an
initialization Job creates the application role and database and grants privileges.
- Console: SQL → select the instance for connections, backups, flags, metrics.
- CLI:
gcloud sql instances list --project "$PROJECT"
gcloud sql instances describe <instance-name> --project "$PROJECT"
gcloud sql connect <instance-name> --user=<db-user> --database=<db-name> --project "$PROJECT"
The instance name, database, user, and password secret are in the Outputs. See App_CloudRun for the connection model, backups, and password rotation.
C. Cloud Storage & NFS
A dedicated Cloud Storage uploads bucket is provisioned automatically. When NFS is
enabled (the default), Firefly III's attachments and runtime directory is mounted from
a Filestore/NFS volume at /var/lib/fireflyiii so uploaded files survive cold starts
and new revisions.
- Console: Cloud Storage → Buckets; Filestore → Instances.
- CLI:
gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT"
gcloud storage ls gs://<uploads-bucket>/ # bucket name is in the Outputs
See App_CloudRun for GCS Fuse, NFS, and CMEK options.
D. Secret Manager
Two cryptographic secrets are generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager:
the Laravel APP_KEY (encrypts sensitive fields at rest) and the STATIC_CRON_TOKEN
(authenticates the cron endpoint). The database password is managed separately by the
foundation.
- Console: Security → Secret Manager.
- CLI:
gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~app-key OR name~cron-token"
gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<secret-name> --project "$PROJECT"
See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.
E. Cron (recurring transactions)
Firefly III runs recurring transactions, bill reminders, and auto-budgets only when a caller hits its cron endpoint. There is no in-process scheduler.
- A built-in
firefly-cronscheduled job (curlimages/curl,0 3 * * *) callsGET <service-url>/api/v1/cron/<STATIC_CRON_TOKEN>daily. It is always added, and anycron_jobsentries you define are appended to it rather than replacing it. - CLI:
# Read the token, then trigger the cron manually to verify:
TOKEN=$(gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<cron-token-secret> --project "$PROJECT")
curl -s "$SERVICE_URL/api/v1/cron/$TOKEN"
F. Networking & ingress
The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default. An external HTTPS load
balancer with a custom domain, Cloud CDN, and Cloud Armor can be layered on; ingress
settings and VPC egress control connectivity.
- Console: Cloud Run (service URL); Network services → Load balancing.
- CLI:
gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)'
gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"
See App_CloudRun.
G. Cloud Logging & Monitoring
Container logs flow to Cloud Logging; Cloud Run and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring, with optional uptime checks and alert policies.
- Console: Logging → Logs Explorer; Monitoring → Dashboards / Alerting.
- CLI:
gcloud run services logs read <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" --limit 50
3. Firefly III Application Behaviour
- First-deploy database setup. An initialization Job runs
db-init.shusingpostgres:15-alpine. It idempotently creates the application role and database and grants privileges on the database andpublicschema. The job is safe to re-run. - Schema created on container start. There is no separate migrate job. The
fireflyiii/coreimage runsphp artisan migrate --forceandfirefly-iii:upgrade-databaseon every boot, so upgradingapplication_versionapplies schema changes automatically oncedb-inithas provisioned the database. APP_KEYis immutable after first boot. It is generated once and written to Secret Manager. Rotating it makes all previously encrypted fields unreadable. Only change it during a planned data-loss-aware migration.- First run is
/register. No admin credential exists in Secret Manager. Create the owner account at/register, then disable further registration in Administration → Settings. - Cron endpoint drives recurring items. Confirm the token and trigger it:
gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)'
curl -s "$SERVICE_URL/api/v1/cron/<STATIC_CRON_TOKEN>" - Health path. The startup probe is TCP on port 8080 (30s initial delay, 40
failures allowed); the liveness probe targets Firefly III's unauthenticated
/statusJSON endpoint (HTTP 200, no login, 300s initial delay). Allow a generous first-boot window while migrations run. - Inspect job execution:
gcloud run jobs list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
gcloud run jobs executions list --job <job-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
4. Configuration Variables
Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for Firefly III are listed; every other input is inherited from App_CloudRun with its standard behaviour.
Group 1 — Project & Identity
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
project_id | (required) | Target Google Cloud project. |
region | us-central1 | Region for the service and regional resources. |
Group 2 — Deployment Environment
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
tenant_id | demo | Short suffix that makes resource names unique per environment. |
support_users | [] | Emails granted project access and monitoring alerts. |
resource_labels | {} | Labels applied to all resources. |
Group 3 — Application Identity
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
application_name | fireflyiii | Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy. |
display_name | FireflyIII | Human-readable name shown in the Console. |
application_version | latest | fireflyiii/core image tag; pin to a release (e.g. version-6.1.21) in production. |
Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
deploy_application | true | Set false to provision infrastructure only. |
container_image_source | prebuilt | Deploys the official fireflyiii/core image directly. |
cpu_limit | 1000m | CPU per instance. |
memory_limit | 2Gi | Memory per instance; 512Mi floor on gen2. |
min_instance_count | 0 | 0 enables scale-to-zero; set 1 to avoid cold starts. |
max_instance_count | 1 | Maximum instances. |
container_port | 8080 | Firefly III (Apache) listens on port 8080. |
execution_environment | gen2 | Gen2 required for NFS/GCS mounts. |
enable_cloudsql_volume | false | Cloud Run reaches Cloud SQL over private-IP TCP, not the socket sidecar. |
enable_image_mirroring | true | Mirror the image into Artifact Registry. |
timeout_seconds | 300 | Max request duration; raise for large CSV imports. |
Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
ingress_settings | all | Public run.app access. |
vpc_egress_setting | PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY | Route only RFC 1918 traffic via VPC. |
enable_iap | false | Require Google sign-in in front of Firefly III (recommended for personal finance data). |
iap_authorized_users / iap_authorized_groups | [] | Who may access through IAP. |
Group 6 — Environment Variables & Secrets
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
environment_variables | {} | Extra non-secret settings (e.g. MAIL_*). Core values (DB_CONNECTION, PGSQL_SSL_MODE, TRUSTED_PROXIES, APP_ENV, APP_URL) are set automatically. |
secret_environment_variables | {} | Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name. APP_KEY and STATIC_CRON_TOKEN are injected automatically. |
secret_propagation_delay | 30 | Seconds to wait after secret creation before proceeding. |
secret_rotation_period | 2592000s | Secret Manager rotation notification frequency. |
Group 7 — Backup & Restore
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
backup_schedule | 0 2 * * * | Automated backup cron (UTC). |
backup_retention_days | 7 | Retention; raise for production/compliance. |
enable_backup_import / backup_source / backup_uri / backup_format | restore options | Restore from a backup on deploy. |
Group 8 — CI/CD & Binary Authorization
Standard App_CloudRun Cloud Build / Cloud Deploy integration — see
App_CloudRun. Key inputs: enable_cicd_trigger,
github_repository_url, github_token, enable_cloud_deploy,
enable_binary_authorization.
Group 9 — Load Balancer, CDN & Image Retention
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
enable_cloud_armor | false | Provision Global HTTPS LB + Cloud Armor WAF. |
admin_ip_ranges | [] | CIDR ranges exempted from WAF rules. |
application_domains | [] | Custom domain names for the HTTPS LB. |
enable_cdn | false | Enable Cloud CDN on the HTTPS LB backend. |
max_images_to_retain / delete_untagged_images / image_retention_days | (set) | Artifact Registry cleanup policy. |
Group 10 — Storage & Filesystem
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
create_cloud_storage | true | Create GCS buckets defined in storage_buckets. |
storage_buckets | [{ name_suffix = "data" }] | Additional buckets beyond the auto-provisioned uploads bucket. |
enable_nfs | true | Persist attachments and runtime data at /var/lib/fireflyiii. |
nfs_mount_path | /var/www/html/storage/upload | Mount path inside the container. |
gcs_volumes | [] | GCS Fuse volume mounts (requires gen2). |
manage_storage_kms_iam / enable_artifact_registry_cmek | false | CMEK options. |
Group 12 — Database Backend
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
database_type | POSTGRES_15 | Fixed to PostgreSQL 15. |
db_name | fireflyiii | Database name, injected as DB_DATABASE. Immutable after first deploy. |
db_user | fireflyiii | Application user, injected as DB_USERNAME. Password auto-generated in Secret Manager. |
database_password_length | 32 | Generated password length (16–64). |
enable_auto_password_rotation / rotation_propagation_delay_sec | off | DB password rotation. |
Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
initialization_jobs | [] | Leave empty to use the built-in db-init job. |
cron_jobs | [] | Extra scheduled jobs. The daily firefly-cron call to /api/v1/cron/<STATIC_CRON_TOKEN> is built in and always added alongside these. |
Group 14 — Observability & Health
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
startup_probe | TCP port 8080, 30s delay, 40 failures | Startup probe. |
liveness_probe | HTTP /status, 300s delay | Liveness probe (unauthenticated 200). |
uptime_check_config | { enabled=false, path="/status" } | Cloud Monitoring uptime check. |
alert_policies | [] | Metric alert policies. |
Group 21 — Redis
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
enable_redis | false | Optional cache/session backend; Firefly III uses the database by default. |
redis_host / redis_port / redis_auth | "" / 6379 / "" | Redis endpoint and auth. |
Group 22 — VPC Service Controls & Audit Logging
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
enable_vpc_sc | false | Enforce a VPC-SC perimeter (requires organization_id). |
vpc_cidr_ranges / vpc_sc_dry_run | (set) | Access level CIDRs / dry-run mode. |
enable_audit_logging | false | Detailed Cloud Audit Logs. |
5. Outputs
Returned on a successful deployment — the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.
| Output | Description |
|---|---|
service_name | Cloud Run service name. |
service_url | Default run.app URL of the service. |
service_location | Region the service runs in. |
stage_services | Stage-specific service URLs (Cloud Deploy). |
load_balancer_ip / load_balancer_url | External HTTPS load balancer IP / URL (when enabled). |
database_instance_name | Cloud SQL instance name. |
database_name / database_user | Application database name / user. |
database_password_secret | Secret Manager secret holding the DB password. |
database_host / database_port | DB endpoint (Cloud SQL private IP) / port. |
storage_buckets | Created Cloud Storage buckets. |
network_name / network_exists / regions | VPC network, presence, regions. |
container_image / container_registry | Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo. |
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels / uptime_check_names | Monitoring status, channels, uptime checks. |
initialization_jobs | Names of the setup jobs. |
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix | Naming identifiers. |
project_id / project_number | Project identifiers. |
cicd_enabled / github_repository_url / github_repository_owner / github_repository_name / cicd_configuration | CI/CD status and details. |
artifact_registry_repository / cloudbuild_trigger_name / cloudbuild_trigger_id | Registry and build trigger. |
vpc_sc_enabled / vpc_sc_perimeter_name / vpc_sc_dry_run_mode | VPC-SC status. |
audit_logging_enabled / artifact_registry_cmek_enabled | Audit logging and CMEK status. |
6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults
Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).
Inherited plan-time validation. This module passes its configuration through the App_CloudRun foundation engine, which validates values and combinations at plan time — a read replica without its primary, IAP with no authorized identities, a
gen1runtime with NFS/GCS mounts, an out-of-rangeredis_port/backup_retention_days. Invalid configuration fails the plan with a clear, named error before any resource is created, so most mistakes below are caught up front rather than at apply or runtime.
| Setting | Sensible value | Risk | Consequence if wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
APP_KEY (auto-generated) | Never rotate after first boot | Critical | Rotating it makes all previously encrypted fields unreadable — data is effectively lost. |
db_name / db_user | Set once | Critical | Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all data. |
enable_backup_import | false unless restoring | Critical | Enabling without a valid backup_uri fails the import job. |
PGSQL_SSL_MODE (auto require) | Leave as set | High | Cloud SQL rejects unencrypted private-IP TCP; disable breaks the connection. |
STATIC_CRON_TOKEN / cron job | Leave the built-in firefly-cron job in place | High | Without a scheduled cron call, recurring transactions, bills, and auto-budgets never fire. |
enable_nfs | true | High | Disabling it puts attachments on ephemeral disk — uploaded files vanish on cold start / new revision. |
memory_limit | 2Gi | High | Below 512Mi is rejected on gen2; low memory OOM-kills PHP during imports. |
enable_iap | enable for private data | High | Firefly III holds financial data; leaving it publicly reachable exposes it to anyone with the URL. |
| First-run registration | Disable after first admin | High | Leaving registration open lets anyone with the URL create an account. |
min_instance_count | 1 for daily use | Medium | Scale-to-zero adds 10–30 s cold-start latency after idle. |
backup_retention_days | 7 (raise for prod) | Medium | Too short for compliance retention. |
enable_cloud_armor | enable for production | Medium | The UI and API are publicly reachable without WAF protection. |
For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — service identity, scaling and concurrency, ingress and load balancing, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_CloudRun. Firefly III-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in FireflyIII_Common.
Related guides
- Hands-on lab: Firefly III on Cloud Run — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
- Firefly III on GKE Autopilot — the same application on Kubernetes, for when you need the other deployment target.
- Firefly III Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.
- Deployed alongside Ghostfolio on Google Cloud Run, Wallos on Google Cloud Run, ActualBudget on Google Cloud Run in the Finance & Wealth Tracking solution.
Need RAD to do something it does not do yet? Request it on the roadmap, or vote on what is already there.