Memos on Google Cloud Run

Memos is an open-source, MIT-licensed, self-hosted note-taking service built for quick markdown capture — a single ~20MB Go binary with a React frontend. This module deploys Memos 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 Memos 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.

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What Memos costs on RAD, and how that compares

Running Memos in your own GCP project costs about $81.23/month in Google Cloud charges; RAD's module fee is a one-time 75 credits (or 67.5 credits in a RAD-managed project), covering setup and support -- not the ongoing cloud bill, which Google bills you directly in your own project or RAD meters hourly in credits in a RAD-managed one. Or see the GKE guide for the alternative deployment target; either way, if you deploy into a RAD-managed project you can pause the whole thing for free when you are not using it -- see Pause it for free below.

What you pay on RAD

	Your own project	RAD-managed project
Module fee	75 credits, once	67.5 credits, once (10% lower)
Build time	metered in credits as the build runs (a few credits, typically)	same
Google Cloud running cost	~$81.23/month, billed to your own billing account at Google's list price	~32 credits/day, metered hourly by RAD at list price plus margin

Default running cost in your own project

Resource	US$/month (Google list price, us-central1)
Cloud Run, 1x vCPU / 0.5 GiB (scaleToZero)	$10.78
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	$81.23

How it compares

• There is no verified official managed SaaS for Memos to compare against, so the honest baseline is a bare VPS: a smaller box is enough -- Hetzner CX11-class or a DigitalOcean 1 vCPU/1-2GB Droplet runs $6-12/month -- but it still needs someone to patch it, back it up and watch it, which RAD's managed Cloud SQL, Secret Manager and monitoring cover for you.
• RAD is not meant to be cheaper than a VPS in cash terms, and usually is not -- for a personal, low-traffic note-taking service, the real argument is what RAD manages for you (backups, patching, secrets, monitoring) rather than the sticker price.
• Either way, this is a personal, low-traffic note-taking service, so the running cost above is what actually drives the bill, not the module fee -- and that running cost is the one you can pause (see below).

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

This is the headline for a RAD-managed project. Deleting a RAD-managed project first unlinks its billing, 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 have customised the app 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 you are past the 30-day restore window above), the alternative is to delete Memos outright and redeploy it later. A redeploy costs the module fee again, plus the builds -- roughly 75 + 3-6 credits of build time.

Deleting saves money only once Memos would otherwise sit unused long enough to clear that redeploy cost against its own daily running cost -- against the own-project total above, that works out to about 3 days or more. Most of the running cost here is usually 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 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.

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; https://cloud.google.com/resource-manager/docs/delete-restore-projects for the pause/restore mechanics.

1. Overview

Memos runs as a single Go container on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a deliberately small set of Google Cloud services — Memos has no queue, no cache, and no background workers:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	Go service, 1 vCPU / 512 MiB by default, serverless autoscaling, scale-to-zero by default
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Required — this module standardizes on Postgres via a single MEMOS_DSN connection URL
File storage	Cloud Filestore (NFS)	enable_nfs = true by default, mounted at Memos's data directory /var/opt/memos — see the attachments note below
Cache & queue	none	Memos has no queue or cache dependency
Secrets	Secret Manager	Only the database password (managed by the Foundation); Memos itself has no app-level secret
Ingress	Cloud Run URL	Default run.app URL; optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• PostgreSQL 15 is the standardized engine. Memos_Common fixes database_type = "POSTGRES_15". Memos itself also supports MySQL and SQLite upstream, but this module does not wire those paths.
• No admin-bootstrap secret exists. The first account created through the web UI becomes the host/admin — there is no DEFAULTUSER-style env var and nothing to retrieve from Secret Manager for first login.
• Scale-to-zero is enabled by default (min_instance_count = 0, cpu_always_allocated = false). Memos does no work without an inbound request, so request-based billing is the correct default — unlike apps with background schedulers or WebSocket push, there is no reason to force always-on CPU here.
• The database DSN is computed at container start, not baked into the image. memos-entrypoint.sh reads the platform-injected DB_* variables and builds the single MEMOS_DSN connection URL Memos expects, branching on whether Cloud Run handed it a Unix-socket directory or a TCP host, and URL-encoding the password.
• Attachments are on NFS by default. Memos writes uploaded attachments as files under /var/opt/memos/assets, not into PostgreSQL. enable_nfs = true mounts the shared Filestore volume at nfs_mount_path (/var/opt/memos), so attachments survive revisions and scale-to-zero. Keep NFS on unless the deployment is text-only; with it off, attachments live on the ephemeral container filesystem and are lost on every restart.
• Public sign-up is open by default, same as any fresh Memos install. Disable self-registration from within the Memos UI after creating the first (admin) account, if the deployment should not accept further public sign-ups.

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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 Memos service

Memos 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.

• 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

Memos stores all application data (notes, tags, users, resources metadata) 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 user.

• 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

Only the database password secret exists for this module — managed entirely by the Foundation, not by Memos_Common. Memos generates its own internal session-signing key and stores it in its own database on first boot; there is no corresponding Secret Manager entry to inspect.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

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

D. 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.

E. 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

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3. Memos 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 role and database. The job is safe to re-run.
• Schema migrations on start. Memos applies its own internal GORM auto-migrate schema setup on every startup — no separate migration job is needed, and upgrading application_version applies schema changes automatically.
• No admin-bootstrap credential to retrieve. The first account created through the web UI's sign-up form becomes the host/admin. There is nothing in Secret Manager to fetch before first login — this differs from most apps in this catalogue.
• Database DSN is computed, not static. memos-entrypoint.sh builds MEMOS_DSN from DB_HOST/DB_PORT/DB_USER/DB_NAME/DB_PASSWORD at container start (see Memos_Common for the exact branching logic), then chains into the upstream image's own entrypoint, which drops privileges to a non-root user before launching the compiled binary.
• Health path. Startup and liveness probes target / — Memos's public login/landing page, reachable without authentication. No dedicated /health or /healthz endpoint is documented upstream.
• Inspect job execution:

  gcloud run jobs list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run jobs executions list --job <job-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

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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 Memos 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	memos	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
application_display_name	Memos	Human-readable name shown in the Console.
application_description	Memos note-taking service on Cloud Run	Service description.
application_version	latest	Deployment-tracking tag. Memos_Common maps "latest" to the pinned MEMOS_VERSION = "0.28.0" Dockerfile build arg, so a fresh build never resolves a non-existent latest upstream tag.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
container_image_source	custom	Builds the wrapper image with the computed-DSN entrypoint. "prebuilt" deploys the official image directly but then requires manually wiring MEMOS_DRIVER/MEMOS_DSN via environment_variables.
container_image	ghcr.io/usememos/memos	Base image reference used by the custom build.
cpu_limit	1000m	CPU per instance.
memory_limit	512Mi	Memory per instance — sufficient for Memos's small footprint.
min_instance_count	0	Scale-to-zero — Memos has no background work to keep warm for.
max_instance_count	1	Single-instance default; raise for higher concurrent load.
container_port	5230	Memos's native default port — no remapping performed.
execution_environment	gen2	Gen2 is required for the NFS mount that holds attachments.
timeout_seconds	300	Maximum request duration (0–3600 seconds).
cpu_always_allocated	false	Request-based billing — Memos does no work between requests.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Cloud SQL Auth Proxy for socket connections.
enable_image_mirroring	true	Mirror the Memos image into Artifact Registry.

Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control

Variable	Default	Description
ingress_settings	all	Public ingress; Memos has no separate unauthenticated ingest path to protect.
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	Route only RFC 1918 traffic via VPC.
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in in front of the whole service.
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. Any MEMOS_* value Memos documents can be set here (e.g. MEMOS_INSTANCE_URL). The database connection (MEMOS_DSN, MEMOS_DRIVER) is computed 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.
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 & NFS

enable_custom_sql_scripts, custom_sql_scripts_bucket, custom_sql_scripts_path run SQL from a GCS bucket after provisioning. nfs_instance_name / nfs_instance_base_name select the shared NFS server whose volume holds Memos's data directory (see Group 11). 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.
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 — empty by default, since Memos attachments are not GCS-backed in this module.
storage_buckets	[]	No bucket provisioned by default.
enable_nfs	true	Mounts the shared NFS volume at nfs_mount_path (/var/opt/memos), where Memos stores uploaded attachments. Turning it off puts attachments on ephemeral disk.
gcs_volumes	[]	Not needed for attachments, which are on NFS by default.

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Fixed by Memos_Common.
application_database_name	memos	PostgreSQL database name. Immutable after first deploy.
application_database_user	memos	Application database user. 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	[]	Not used — Memos has no platform-scheduled recurring tasks.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	HTTP / 30s delay	Startup probe — targets the public login page.
liveness_probe	HTTP / 30s delay	Liveness probe.
uptime_check_config	{ enabled=false }	Cloud Monitoring uptime check; enable explicitly to activate.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 16 — Redis

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	false	Memos has no cache/queue dependency; leave false unless integrating an external Redis instance for a custom purpose.

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.

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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	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 / port.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets — empty by default.
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 (includes db-init).
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.

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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).

Inherited plan-time validation. This module passes its configuration through the App_CloudRun foundation engine, which validates values and combinations at plan time. 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
application_database_name / application_database_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all data.
First account created via sign-up	Create it immediately after deploy	Critical	The first account to register becomes host/admin — if left open, any visitor who reaches the URL first claims that role.
Public self-registration	Disable after first admin	High	Memos ships with open sign-up by default; leaving it enabled lets anyone with the URL create an account.
container_image_source	custom (default)	High	"prebuilt" deploys the official image directly, but that image has no logic to compute MEMOS_DSN from the platform's DB_* vars — it must be wired manually via environment_variables or the app fails to connect to the database.
enable_backup_import	false unless restoring	Critical	Enabling without a valid backup_file fails the import job.
memory_limit	512Mi (default is sufficient)	Medium	Memos's footprint is small; raising this mainly affects cost, not correctness.
min_instance_count	0 (default)	Low	Scale-to-zero adds a brief cold start (Go binary, fast boot) to the first request after idle — much shorter than JVM/Node.js apps in this catalogue.
enable_nfs for attachments	Leave true	Medium	With NFS off, uploaded attachments live on Cloud Run's ephemeral filesystem and do not survive a revision restart or scale-to-zero — text notes in PostgreSQL are unaffected.
enable_cloud_armor	enable for production	Medium	The login/sign-up form is publicly reachable without WAF protection by default.

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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. Memos-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Memos_Common.

Related guides

• Hands-on lab: Memos on Cloud Run — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
• Memos on GKE Autopilot — the same application on Kubernetes, for when you need the other deployment target.
• Memos Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.
• Deployed alongside Trilium on Google Cloud Run, Linkwarden on Google Cloud Run, Wallabag on Google Cloud Run, FreshRSS on Google Cloud Run in the Personal Knowledge & Reading solution.