Ghostfolio on GKE Autopilot

Ghostfolio is an open-source, AGPL-licensed wealth management application for tracking net worth, investment portfolios, and asset allocation across multiple brokerage accounts and platforms — a privacy-first alternative to commercial portfolio trackers. This module deploys Ghostfolio on GKE Autopilot on top of the App_GKE foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud and Kubernetes infrastructure.

This guide focuses on the cloud services Ghostfolio uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics that are common to every GKE application — Workload Identity, ingress, autoscaling, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_GKE foundation guide rather than repeating them here.

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What Ghostfolio costs on RAD, and how that compares

Running Ghostfolio in your own Google Cloud project costs about US$106.53/month in Google Cloud charges, on top of a one-time 110-credit RAD module fee (99 credits — 10% lower — in a RAD-managed project). Ghostfolio is an open-source wealth management application for tracking net worth, investment portfolios, and asset allocation across multiple accounts and platforms. If you deploy into a RAD-managed project, you can pause the whole thing for free and pick it back up later — see "Pause it for free" below.

Ghostfolio is also available on Cloud Run — see the Cloud Run guide for the lower-cost option; this guide covers the GKE variant.

What you pay on RAD

	Own project	RAD-managed project
Module fee	110 credits (one-time)	99 credits (one-time, 10% lower)
Build time	~3–6 credits (one-time, per build)	~3–6 credits (one-time, per build)
Google Cloud running cost	~US$106.53/month, billed to your own Google billing account at list price	~92 credits/day (~US$9.20/day), metered hourly at list price plus RAD's margin

Default running cost in your own project

Resource	US$/month (Google list price, us-central1)
GKE Autopilot pod, 1x vCPU / 1 GiB	US$36.08
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD	US$51.02
NFS/cache file server (small VM)	US$13.43
Cloud NAT and networking	US$5
Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups)	US$1
GKE cluster management fee	shared across every GKE app in the project; $0 if this is your only cluster, else ~73
Total	US$106.53

How it compares

• There is no officially hosted/cloud version of Ghostfolio to compare against, so the honest comparison is against self-managed infrastructure, not a competing SaaS.
• A bare VPS sized to roughly 1 vCPU / 1 GiB — a Hetzner CPX22 (2 vCPU/4GB, ~US$24/mo), a DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4GB Droplet (US$24/mo), or GCP's own Compute Engine e2-standard-2 (2 vCPU/8GB, ~US$49/mo) — usually undercuts RAD's sticker price; a VPS a size or two smaller would undercut it further.
• What that lower price does not include is the admin's own time: patching the OS, rotating database backups, renewing TLS certificates and watching for downtime. RAD's managed Cloud SQL, Secret Manager and monitoring do that for you, which is the actual trade being made, not the sticker price.
• RAD is not claiming to be cheaper than a bare VPS in cash terms — it usually is not. The case for RAD is what's managed for you.

Pause it for free: delete a RAD-managed project, restore it when you need it

If Ghostfolio is running in a RAD-managed project, you can stop paying for it entirely without destroying it. Deleting that project first unlinks its billing, then asks Google to delete the project outright — Google's own 30-day recoverable soft delete. Unlike deleting the Ghostfolio module on its own, this does not tear down Cloud SQL, any VM or the compute resource one by one: the whole project simply stops, and nothing is charged while it waits, because billing is already unlinked.

Restoring, within 30 days and only by the project's owner, 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. This costs only a handful of build-time credits in total — roughly 5–10 credits, under US$1, for a typical 2–3-deployment chain. The 99-credit module fee is not charged again.

What this needs: you must own the project (not one RAD only manages billing for), you must restore it yourself within 30 days — after that Google deletes it for good — and restoring is admitted like creating a new project, so 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 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 have customised Ghostfolio 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

If Ghostfolio is in your own project (or more than 30 days have passed on a RAD-managed one), the way to stop paying is to delete the deployment and redeploy later when you need it again.

A redeploy costs the module fee again, plus the builds: roughly 110 + ~3–6 credits (~US$11.45) in your own project, or 99 + ~3–6 credits on a RAD-managed one.

Deleting only saves money once Ghostfolio would otherwise sit unused long enough to clear that redeploy cost against its own running cost: roughly about 4 days or more idle in your own project (against its ~US$106.53/month Google Cloud bill), or about 2 days or more idle in a RAD-managed project (against its ~92 credits/day).

Most of Ghostfolio's running cost is the database and the 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 share of the total above.

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.

Lab sessions and Managed Environments

• Lab sessions, for training: a trainer runs a session for a class. Each participant gets the app 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 Billing Catalog API list prices; radmodules.dev/pricing for RAD's own fees and daily-credit estimates; Google's project delete/restore docs for the pause/restore mechanics.

1. Overview

Ghostfolio runs as a NestJS (Prisma ORM) web workload. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	GKE Autopilot	NestJS API + Angular frontend, 1 vCPU / 1 GiB by default, horizontally autoscaled
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Required — Ghostfolio's Prisma ORM does not support MySQL
Cache & queue	Redis (required, not optional)	Market-data caching, sessions, and Bull queue/job management
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT and JWT_SECRET_KEY; database password
Ingress	Cloud Load Balancing	External LoadBalancer Service by default; optional custom domain + managed certificate

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• PostgreSQL 15 is mandatory. The database engine is fixed by the shared application layer; Ghostfolio's Prisma ORM does not support other engines.
• Redis is mandatory, not optional. Ghostfolio's own health endpoint checks Redis connectivity directly, so the app never reports healthy without it.
• ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT and JWT_SECRET_KEY are generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager. Both are boot-blocking. Rotating ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT after first boot invalidates every previously issued anonymous Security Token.
• No seeded admin account. The first visitor to the deployed URL clicks "Get Started" and the app mints a random Security Token as the account owner — there is no email/password form or first-run wizard to complete.
• service_type = "LoadBalancer" by default. Ghostfolio is a browser-facing web UI, so unlike internal-only apps (databases, admin tools) it needs a publicly reachable Service.
• No bulk file/media storage is provisioned. enable_nfs defaults false and storage_buckets is always empty.
• DATABASE_URL is composed at runtime. Ghostfolio's Prisma connection string is a URL-authority DSN; on GKE the cloud entrypoint uses the cloud-sql-proxy sidecar's 127.0.0.1 loopback with sslmode=disable when enable_cloudsql_volume = true (the default).

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2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them

All commands assume you have run gcloud container clusters get-credentials <cluster> --region <region> --project <project> and that PROJECT, REGION, and NAMESPACE are set. Resource names are reported in the deployment Outputs.

A. GKE Autopilot — the Ghostfolio workload

Ghostfolio runs as a Kubernetes Deployment behind a Service. Autopilot manages node provisioning and bin-packing automatically.

• Console: Kubernetes Engine → Workloads → select the Deployment.
• CLI:

  kubectl get deployment -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl get pods -n "$NAMESPACE" -o wide
  kubectl describe deployment <deployment-name> -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" -l app=<app-label> --tail=100

See App_GKE for scaling, rollout strategy, and pod disruption budgets.

B. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15

Ghostfolio stores all application data in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance, reached via a cloud-sql-proxy sidecar listening on 127.0.0.1. On first deploy an initialization Job creates the application database and role.

• 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"

C. Redis (required)

Redis backs market-data caching, sessions, and Bull queue/job management.

• CLI:

  kubectl exec -it -n "$NAMESPACE" <pod-name> -- sh -c 'echo -e "PING\r" | nc $REDIS_HOST $REDIS_PORT'
  # Confirm the pod's injected Redis env vars:
  kubectl exec -n "$NAMESPACE" <pod-name> -- env | grep REDIS

D. Secret Manager

Two cryptographic secrets are generated automatically: ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT and JWT_SECRET_KEY. The database password is managed separately by the foundation and synced into the cluster via SecretSync.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

  gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<secret-name> --project "$PROJECT"

E. Networking & ingress

The default LoadBalancer Service exposes an external IP. A Kubernetes Ingress with a custom domain and managed certificate can be layered on via enable_custom_domain.

• CLI:

  kubectl get svc -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl get ingress -n "$NAMESPACE"

F. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Container logs flow to Cloud Logging automatically via the GKE logging agent; metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring.

• CLI:

  gcloud logging read 'resource.type="k8s_container" resource.labels.namespace_name="'"$NAMESPACE"'"' --project "$PROJECT" --limit 50

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3. Ghostfolio Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. An initialization Job runs db-init.sh using postgres:15-alpine, idempotently creating the application role, database, and grants.
• Migrations and seeding run on EVERY container boot, inside the same process as the server. The upstream docker/entrypoint.sh runs prisma migrate deploy, then prisma db seed, then starts the server — a failed migration crashes the container loudly instead of shipping a healthy pod against an empty database.
• ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT and JWT_SECRET_KEY are immutable after first boot. Rotating ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT invalidates every previously issued Security Token. Rotating JWT_SECRET_KEY logs everyone out.
• No first-run form to fill in. The first visitor mints their own Security Token via "Get Started" — no admin bootstrap step is required.
• Health path. Startup and liveness probes target GET /api/v1/health, which checks BOTH the database AND Redis connections and returns 503 until both are healthy.
• Inspect job execution:

  kubectl get jobs -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" job/<job-name>

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4. Configuration Variables

Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for Ghostfolio are listed; every other input is inherited from App_GKE with its standard behaviour.

Group 3 — Application Identity

Variable	Default	Description
application_name	ghostfolio	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
application_version	latest	Docker Hub's ghostfolio/ghostfolio publishes a real latest tag — pin for reproducible builds.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
container_resources	{ cpu_limit="1000m", memory_limit="1Gi" }	1 vCPU / 1 GiB is sufficient for typical usage.
container_port	3333	Ghostfolio's DEFAULT_PORT.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Runs the cloud-sql-proxy sidecar; DB_IP resolves to 127.0.0.1 and the cloud entrypoint uses sslmode=disable.
container_image_source	custom	Cloud Build wraps the prebuilt ghostfolio/ghostfolio image with a thin cloud entrypoint.

Group 6 — Kubernetes Placement & Networking

Variable	Default	Description
service_type	LoadBalancer	Ghostfolio is a browser-facing web UI — do not switch to ClusterIP without a separate ingress path.
namespace_name	(auto-generated)	Kubernetes namespace.

Group 15 — Database

Variable	Default	Description
application_database_name	ghostfolio	PostgreSQL database name. Immutable after first deploy.
application_database_user	ghostfolio	Application database user. Password auto-generated in Secret Manager.

Group 13 — Jobs & NFS

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Leave empty to use the built-in db-init job. No separate migrate job — migrations run inside the app container on every boot.
enable_nfs	false	Not required — Ghostfolio has no bulk file/media storage.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe_config	HTTP /api/v1/health, 30s delay, 12-failure threshold	Checks BOTH database AND Redis connectivity.
health_check_config	HTTP /api/v1/health, 30s delay, 3-failure threshold	Same endpoint as the startup probe.

Group 21 — Redis

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	true	REQUIRED — always forward unconditionally, never gate on redis_host != "".
redis_host	""	Redis endpoint. Leave empty to use the NFS server IP.
redis_auth	""	Redis auth password (sensitive). Aliased at runtime onto Ghostfolio's own REDIS_PASSWORD env var.

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5. Outputs

Returned on a successful deployment — the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.

Output	Description
service_name	Kubernetes Service name.
service_url	URL of the deployed application (LoadBalancer IP, custom domain, or internal DNS).
namespace	Kubernetes namespace.
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.
storage_buckets	Always empty — Ghostfolio needs no bulk file/media storage.
container_image / container_registry	Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo.
initialization_jobs	Names of the setup jobs.
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.

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6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults

Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).

Setting	Sensible value	Risk	Consequence if wrong
ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT (auto-generated)	Never rotate after first boot	Critical	Rotating it invalidates every previously issued Security Token.
JWT_SECRET_KEY (auto-generated)	Only rotate in a maintenance window	Critical	Rotating it invalidates all active sessions.
application_database_name / application_database_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all data.
enable_redis	true, always forwarded unconditionally	Critical	Without it, Ghostfolio's health endpoint never reports healthy.
service_type	LoadBalancer	High	Switching to ClusterIP without a separate ingress path makes the app unreachable from outside the cluster.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	High	Disabling it removes the proxy sidecar, so DB_IP falls back to the raw private IP and the cloud entrypoint's sslmode branching no longer matches a loopback connection.
enable_backup_import	false unless restoring	Critical	Enabling without a valid backup_uri fails the import job.

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For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — Workload Identity, ingress, autoscaling, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_GKE. Ghostfolio-specific application configuration shared with the Cloud Run variant is described in Ghostfolio_Common.

Related guides

• Hands-on lab: Ghostfolio on GKE Autopilot — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
• Ghostfolio on Google Cloud Run — the same application on Cloud Run, for when you need the other deployment target.
• Ghostfolio Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.