Gotify on Google Cloud Run

Gotify is an open-source (MIT-licensed), self-hosted server for sending and receiving real-time push notifications. Applications post messages over a simple REST API and clients receive them instantly over WebSocket streams. This module deploys Gotify 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 Gotify 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 Gotify costs on RAD, and how that compares

Running Gotify on Cloud Run in your own Google Cloud project costs about $115.17/month in Google Cloud charges, on top of a one-off 75-credit RAD module fee charged once at deploy time. Gotify's job is small — accept a webhook, fan it out over WebSocket — but this deployment still needs a database and a file server behind it, which is most of the $115.17 above. In a RAD-managed project the module fee drops to 67.5 credits (10% lower) and the running cost is metered hourly in credits instead of billed directly by Google — see Pause it for free below for the one RAD-managed advantage a self-hosted VPS cannot match — or see the GKE guide if you'd rather run it on Kubernetes.

What you pay on RAD

	Own project	RAD-managed project
Module fee (one-off)	75 credits	67.5 credits (10% lower)
Build time	~3-6 credits per build, either way	~3-6 credits per build, either way
Google Cloud running cost	$115.17/month, billed by Google at list price	~54 credits/day, metered at list price plus RAD's margin

Default running cost in your own project

Resource	US$/month (Google list price, us-central1)
Cloud Run, 1x vCPU / 0.5 GiB (alwaysOn)	$44.72
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD	$51.02
NFS/cache file server (small VM)	$13.43
Cloud NAT and networking	$5.00
Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups)	$1.00
Total	$115.17

How it compares

• A self-managed comparison: Hetzner CPX22 (2 vCPU/4GB) runs about $24/mo, a DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4GB Droplet is the same $24/mo, and a GCP Compute Engine e2-standard-2 (2 vCPU/8GB) is about $49/mo — any of those is enough to run Gotify and its Postgres database together in Docker Compose on one box, at a lower sticker price than RAD's managed stack.
• What that price doesn't include: backups, security patches, TLS renewal, and disk-full 2am pages, all of which RAD's managed Cloud SQL, Secret Manager and monitoring absorb for you.
• Gotify has no official hosted SaaS version of its own — it only ships as self-hosted software, so the choice is really "manage a VPS yourself" or "let RAD manage the same stack", not RAD-vs-a-subscription.

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

This is the headline advantage of a RAD-managed project, and it costs nothing while paused. Deleting a RAD-managed project unlinks its billing first, then asks Google to delete the project outright — Google's own 30-day recoverable soft delete. Unlike deleting one module, 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 credits (under US$1) in total for a typical 2-3-deployment chain.

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've customised Gotify 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

In your own project, or once 30 days have passed on a RAD-managed one, there is no free pause — deleting removes the resources for good, and bringing Gotify back means redeploying from scratch. That costs about 78-81 credits (the 75-credit module fee plus a build).

Deleting only saves money once Gotify would otherwise sit unused long enough to clear that redeploy cost against its own running cost — for Gotify, that's about 3 days or more. Most of that running cost is usually the database (and, where this module uses one, the shared file-server VM or GKE cluster) — those stop only once nothing else in the project uses them, so deleting this app while something else shares the project saves only its own compute share.

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 documentation for the pause/restore claims.

1. Overview

Gotify runs as a single-binary Go container on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	Go service, 1 vCPU / 512 MiB by default, always-on CPU for WebSocket streams
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Required — this module never uses Gotify's embedded SQLite
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated admin password (GOTIFY_DEFAULTUSER_PASS); database password
Container build	Cloud Build + Artifact Registry	Wraps ghcr.io/gotify/server with a DB-mapping entrypoint
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. database_type = "POSTGRES_15" is fixed by the shared application layer; Gotify's SQLite mode is not used, so no persistent disk is required.
• The container listens on port 80. container_port = 80 and the entrypoint sets GOTIFY_SERVER_PORT = 80.
• CPU is always allocated (cpu_always_allocated = true) with min = max = 1. Gotify holds long-lived WebSocket streams and an in-process message bus, so CPU must not be throttled between requests. This defeats scale-to-zero; a low-traffic instance can flip cpu_always_allocated = false, accepting that stream delivery pauses while idle.
• A single instance is the safe default. Gotify's message bus is in-process, so a client stream only receives messages delivered to the instance it is connected to. Scaling beyond one instance without an external fan-out layer drops messages for some subscribers.
• The admin password is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager, injected as GOTIFY_DEFAULTUSER_PASS. The initial admin (admin) is created on the first database initialisation only.
• No object storage bucket is provisioned (storage_buckets = []). Messages, applications, and tokens live in PostgreSQL; uploaded application images and plugins live on the NFS share at /app/data (enable_nfs = true, which must stay on — otherwise they vanish on every new revision or cold start).
• The image is custom-built. container_image_source = "custom" builds a wrapper around ghcr.io/gotify/server that maps the platform DB_* variables onto Gotify's GOTIFY_DATABASE_* (GORM) configuration; latest pins to base 2.9.1.
• Public ingress is the default. ingress_settings = "all" so sending applications and receiving clients can reach the REST API and WebSocket.

---

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 Gotify service

Gotify runs as a Cloud Run v2 service. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts. Because CPU is always allocated and a single instance is maintained, WebSocket streams stay connected between message sends.

• 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

Gotify stores all application data (messages, applications, clients, users) in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance. The service connects privately through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy over a Unix socket; no public IP is exposed. On first deploy an initialization Job creates the application database and role; Gotify then applies its own schema via GORM auto-migration on first startup.

• 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. Secret Manager

The admin password (GOTIFY_DEFAULTUSER_PASS) is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager. The database password is managed separately by the foundation.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

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

See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.

D. Container build & Artifact Registry

The custom image wraps ghcr.io/gotify/server with a DB-mapping entrypoint. Cloud Build builds it and pushes to Artifact Registry; enable_image_mirroring = true mirrors the upstream base into Artifact Registry to avoid registry rate limits.

• Console: Cloud Build → History; Artifact Registry → Repositories.
• CLI:

  gcloud builds list --project "$PROJECT" --limit 5
  gcloud artifacts repositories list --project "$PROJECT"

E. Networking & ingress

The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default, which allows the public access required for sending applications and receiving clients. An external HTTPS load balancer with a custom domain, Cloud CDN, and Cloud Armor can be layered on.

• 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.

F. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Container logs flow to Cloud Logging; Cloud Run and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring, with an optional uptime check against /health (disabled by default) and optional alert policies.

• Console: Logging → Logs Explorer; Monitoring → Dashboards / Alerting.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services logs read <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" --limit 50

---

3. Gotify Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. An initialization Job runs create-db-and-user.sh using postgres:15-alpine. It connects through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy and idempotently creates the application database and role and grants privileges. The job is safe to re-run.
• Schema via GORM auto-migration. Gotify creates and migrates its own tables on every startup — there is no separate migration job. Upgrading the application version applies schema changes automatically.
• The admin account is bootstrapped once. GOTIFY_DEFAULTUSER_NAME = admin and the GOTIFY_DEFAULTUSER_PASS secret create the initial administrator on the first database initialisation only. Retrieve the password from Secret Manager and change it after first login. Changing the secret later does not reset the admin password.
• Send and receive are token-authenticated. After logging in, create an application (which yields an app token) to send messages via POST /message?token=<apptoken>, and use a client token to subscribe over the WebSocket at /stream?token=<clienttoken>. Confirm health without a token:

  curl -s "$(gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" \
    --project "$PROJECT" --format='value(status.url)')/health"

• Single-instance WebSocket delivery. Because the message bus is in-process, keep max_instance_count = 1 unless you add an external fan-out layer — otherwise a message sent to one instance is not delivered to clients streaming from another.
• Health path. Startup and liveness probes target /health — the public endpoint that returns {"health":"green","database":"green"} once PostgreSQL is reachable. The default startup probe allows ~5 minutes on first boot.
• 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 Gotify 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	gotify	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
application_display_name	Gotify	Human-readable name shown in the Console.
application_description	Gotify push notification server on Cloud Run	Service description.
application_version	latest	Image tag; latest resolves to the pinned base 2.9.1. Pin a release in production.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
container_image_source	custom	custom builds the DB-mapping wrapper image; prebuilt deploys an image URI you configure.
cpu_limit	1000m	CPU per instance; 1 vCPU suits most instances.
memory_limit	512Mi	Memory per instance; 512 MiB is the gen2 floor.
min_instance_count	1	Keep at 1 so WebSocket streams stay connected.
max_instance_count	1	Keep at 1 — the in-process message bus does not fan out across instances.
cpu_always_allocated	true	Required for WebSocket streams; flip to false only for low-traffic instances.
container_port	80	Gotify listens on port 80.
execution_environment	gen2	Gen2 execution environment.
timeout_seconds	300	Maximum request duration; raise for long-lived streams.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Cloud SQL Auth Proxy for socket connections.
enable_image_mirroring	true	Mirror ghcr.io/gotify/server into Artifact Registry.
traffic_split	[]	Split traffic across revisions for staged rollouts.
max_revisions_to_retain	7	How many old revisions to keep.

Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control

Variable	Default	Description
ingress_settings	all	all lets sending apps and receiving clients reach the service.
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	Route only RFC 1918 traffic via VPC.
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in. Blocks token-only API callers unless they also carry identity.
iap_authorized_users / iap_authorized_groups	[]	Who may access through IAP.

Group 6 — Environment Variables & Secrets

Variable	Default	Description
environment_variables	{}	Extra GOTIFY_* settings. The database connection and GOTIFY_DEFAULTUSER_PASS are injected automatically — do not set them here.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name.
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_file / 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 — Custom SQL Scripts

enable_custom_sql_scripts, custom_sql_scripts_bucket, custom_sql_scripts_path, custom_sql_scripts_use_root — run SQL from a GCS bucket after provisioning. See App_CloudRun.

Group 10 — 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 (requires Cloud Armor).
max_images_to_retain / delete_untagged_images / image_retention_days	(set)	Artifact Registry cleanup policy.

Group 11 — Storage & Filesystem

Variable	Default	Description
create_cloud_storage	true	Create GCS buckets defined in storage_buckets.
storage_buckets	[]	Empty — Gotify needs no file storage. Add buckets only for custom needs.
enable_nfs	true	Must stay true on Cloud Run: uploaded application images and plugins live under /app/data and otherwise vanish on every new revision or cold start.
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 — Gotify uses managed PostgreSQL.
application_database_name	gotify	Database name. Immutable after first deploy.
application_database_user	gotify	Application role. 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.
enable_postgres_extensions / postgres_extensions	off	Optional PostgreSQL extensions.

Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Leave empty to use the built-in db-init job.
cron_jobs	[]	Optional Cloud Scheduler + Cloud Run Jobs.
additional_services	[]	Additional Cloud Run services alongside Gotify.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	HTTP /health, 30s delay, 30 failures	Startup probe. Allows ~5 minutes on first boot.
liveness_probe	HTTP /health, 30s delay	Liveness probe.
startup_probe_config / health_check_config	HTTP /health	App_CloudRun-level probes.
uptime_check_config	{ enabled=false, path="/health" }	Cloud Monitoring uptime check; disabled by default.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 16 — Redis

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	false	Gotify needs no Redis; leave off unless integrating an external instance.
redis_host	""	Redis endpoint (only used when enable_redis = true).
redis_port	6379	Redis port.

Group 22 — VPC Service Controls & Audit Logging

Variable	Default	Description
enable_vpc_sc	false	Enforce a VPC-SC perimeter (auto-discovers 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.
project_id / deployment_id	Project ID / deployment suffix.
database_instance_name	Cloud SQL instance name.
database_name / database_user	Application database name / role.
database_password_secret	Secret Manager secret holding the DB password.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets (empty for Gotify).
container_image	Deployed image.
cicd_enabled / github_repository_url	CI/CD status and connected repo.

---

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 — IAP with no authorized identities, a gen1 runtime with NFS/GCS mounts, an out-of-range redis_port/backup_retention_days, a database_type that does not match an enabled extension. Invalid configuration fails the plan with a clear, named error before any resource is created.

Setting	Sensible value	Risk	Consequence if wrong
max_instance_count	1	Critical	Scaling beyond 1 without external fan-out drops messages for clients streaming from other instances (in-process message bus).
application_database_name / application_database_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/role and destroys all messages.
enable_backup_import	false unless restoring	Critical	Enabling without a valid backup fails the import job.
cpu_always_allocated	true	High	Under request-based billing, CPU throttles between requests and WebSocket stream delivery stalls while idle.
container_port	80	High	Gotify listens on 80; a mismatched port fails the startup probe and the revision never serves.
memory_limit	512Mi	High	Below the gen2 512 MiB floor the plan is rejected.
min_instance_count	1	High	Scale-to-zero drops all live WebSocket streams whenever the instance is reclaimed.
ingress_settings	all	High	internal blocks external senders and receivers from reaching the service.
enable_iap	only when API callers carry identity	High	IAP requires Google identity on every request, blocking token-only send/receive callers.
GOTIFY_DEFAULTUSER_PASS (auto-generated)	Change admin password after first login	High	The bootstrap password only applies on first init; leaving the default admin password unchanged is a standing credential exposure.
backup_retention_days	7 (raise for prod)	Medium	Too short for compliance retention.
enable_cloud_armor	enable for production	Medium	The API and UI 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. Gotify-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Gotify_Common.

Related guides

• Hands-on lab: Gotify on Cloud Run — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
• Gotify on GKE Autopilot — the same application on Kubernetes, for when you need the other deployment target.
• Gotify Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.
• Deployed alongside Chatwoot on Google Cloud Run, FreeScout on Google Cloud Run, BookStack on Google Cloud Run, Fider on Google Cloud Run in the Customer Support Desk solution.