Metabase on Google Cloud Run

Metabase is an open-source business intelligence and analytics platform that lets non-technical users query, visualise, and share data without writing SQL. This module deploys Metabase 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 Metabase 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 Metabase costs on RAD, and how that compares

Running Metabase in your own GCP project costs about $88.56/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	~$88.56/month, billed to your own billing account at Google's list price	~26 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, 2x vCPU / 4 GiB (scaleToZero)	$31.53
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD	$51.02
Cloud NAT and networking	$5.00
Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups)	$1.00
Total	$88.56

How it compares

• Metabase's own official managed cloud (Metabase Cloud) starts at $90/month (Starter, billed monthly; $100/month list) (source: https://www.metabase.com/pricing), run by the project itself with no infrastructure to operate -- the comparison that matters here is less the sticker price and more whether you want the vendor's own cloud or your own GCP project with RAD managing it.
• Running it yourself on a bare VPS is still the cheapest cash option -- Hetzner CPX22 (2 vCPU/4GB) runs about $24/month, a DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4GB Droplet is also $24/month, and a GCP Compute Engine e2-standard-2 (2 vCPU/8GB) is about $49/month -- plus the admin's own time for backups, security patches and upgrades, which RAD's managed Cloud SQL, Secret Manager and monitoring cover for you -- but RAD's price is never meant to beat a VPS, only to replace the admin time a VPS still needs.
• Either way, this is a team BI/analytics tool queried occasionally rather than continuously, 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 Metabase 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 Metabase 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; it stops only when nothing else in the project uses it, 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; https://www.metabase.com/pricing for the named competitor's price.

1. Overview

Metabase runs as a Java/JVM (Jetty) 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	JVM service, 2 vCPU / 4 GiB by default, request-based autoscaling
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Required — Metabase stores all application state (questions, dashboards, users) in PostgreSQL
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated database password; Metabase manages its own internal keys
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 the only supported engine. All application state lives in this database.
• No Redis is required. Metabase does not use Redis; enable_redis defaults to false.
• min_instance_count defaults to 0 (scale-to-zero). JVM cold starts take 60–120 seconds. Set to 1 for production to eliminate this latency.
• cpu_always_allocated defaults to false (request-based billing). Metabase serves interactive queries on request, so CPU is billed only while handling a call. If you rely on scheduled subscriptions/pulses or periodic DB-sync scans, that work runs with no inbound request and gets throttled under request-based billing — set cpu_always_allocated = true so scheduled jobs actually complete.
• Health probes target /api/health (HTTP), which returns 200 only once the JVM is fully up. The startup probe uses a 120-second initial delay with 15 retries, giving ~270 seconds total tolerance.
• MB_JETTY_PORT = "3000" and JAVA_TIMEZONE = "UTC" are injected automatically — do not override them.
• No GCS storage bucket is created by default. Metabase stores everything in PostgreSQL.

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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 Metabase service

Metabase 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. With min_instance_count = 0 the service scales to zero when idle; JVM cold starts take 60–120 seconds, so set min_instance_count = 1 for production.

• 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

Metabase stores its entire application state — questions, dashboards, collections, users, permissions, and settings — 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). 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> --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 database password is stored in Secret Manager and injected into the service at runtime. Metabase manages its own internal encryption keys separately.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

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

See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.

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 (including JVM output) 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. Metabase Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. An initialization Job runs before the service starts. It uses postgres:15-alpine to connect to Cloud SQL and idempotently create the application database and user. It is safe to re-run.
• No auto-migration on startup. Metabase applies migrations as part of its own startup process — the db-init job must succeed first so the database and user already exist when Metabase boots.
• Upgrade caution. Metabase migrations are one-way. Downgrading after a migration has run corrupts the schema. Always test upgrades in staging before applying to production.
• Health path. Startup and liveness probes target /api/health (HTTP 200 when the JVM is fully initialised). The startup probe allows a 120-second initial delay plus 15 × 10s retries (~270 seconds total). Do not reduce these values.
• Admin setup. On first boot Metabase presents a setup wizard in the browser. Admin credentials are managed inside Metabase itself — no admin secret is created by this module.
• Data sources. After deployment, configure data sources in Metabase Admin → Databases. Common GCP-native sources include BigQuery, Cloud SQL PostgreSQL/MySQL, and Google Sheets.
• MB_JETTY_PORT and JAVA_TIMEZONE are fixed. Injected automatically by Metabase_Common. Overriding them breaks routing or produces inconsistent report timestamps.

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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 Metabase 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	metabase	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
display_name	Metabase Analytics	Friendly name shown in the Console.
description	Metabase — open-source business intelligence and analytics platform	Service description.
application_version	v0.51.3	Metabase image version tag. Never downgrade — migrations are irreversible.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
cpu_limit	2000m	CPU per instance; minimum 1 vCPU, 2 vCPU recommended.
memory_limit	4Gi	Memory per instance; JVM requires at least 2 GiB; 4 GiB recommended for production.
min_instance_count	0	Minimum instances. Set to 1 for production to eliminate 60–120s JVM cold starts.
max_instance_count	3	Maximum instances (cost ceiling).
cpu_always_allocated	false	Request-based billing by default — Metabase serves on request. Set true if you rely on scheduled subscriptions/pulses or periodic DB-sync scans, which run with no inbound request and would otherwise be throttled.
container_port	3000	Metabase's Jetty port — must match MB_JETTY_PORT.
execution_environment	gen2	Gen2 recommended for improved startup performance.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Cloud SQL Auth Proxy for Unix socket connections. Required.
timeout_seconds	300	Max request duration; increase for long-running analytical queries.
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	Which networks may reach the service. Use internal-and-cloud-load-balancing for production.
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	How outbound traffic is routed through the VPC.
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in via Identity-Aware Proxy. Recommended for internal deployments.
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. MB_JETTY_PORT and JAVA_TIMEZONE are injected automatically — do not override.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name (e.g., SMTP password).
secret_propagation_delay / secret_rotation_period	(set)	Replication wait / rotation cadence.

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 — Custom SQL Scripts & NFS

Variable	Default	Description
enable_custom_sql_scripts / custom_sql_scripts_bucket / custom_sql_scripts_path / custom_sql_scripts_use_root	off	Run SQL from a GCS bucket after provisioning. See App_CloudRun.
nfs_instance_name / nfs_instance_base_name	(set)	NFS storage — not required for Metabase.

Group 10 — Domain, CDN, Cloud Armor & Image Retention

Variable	Default	Description
application_domains	[]	Custom hostnames for the external load balancer.
enable_cdn	false	Enable Cloud CDN on the LB backend.
enable_cloud_armor / admin_ip_ranges	off	Attach a WAF policy / restrict privileged access.
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	Provision GCS buckets when storage_buckets is non-empty.
storage_buckets	[]	Empty by default — Metabase does not require object storage.
enable_nfs	false	NFS storage is not required for Metabase.
gcs_volumes	[]	GCS Fuse volume mounts.
manage_storage_kms_iam / enable_artifact_registry_cmek	false	CMEK options.

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Fixed — do not change. Metabase requires PostgreSQL.
db_name	metabase	Database name. Immutable after first deploy.
db_user	metabase	Application user. Immutable after first deploy.
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 (PostgreSQL database + user creation).
cron_jobs	[]	Recurring jobs triggered by Cloud Scheduler.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	/api/health, initial delay 120s, failure threshold 15	HTTP startup probe; total tolerance ~270s for JVM. Do not reduce.
liveness_probe	/api/health, initial delay 120s, failure threshold 3	Liveness probe.
uptime_check_config	disabled, /api/health	Cloud Monitoring uptime check. Enable for production monitoring.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 21 — Redis

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	false	Metabase does not use Redis; leave disabled.
redis_host / redis_port / redis_auth	(set)	Only relevant if a plugin or custom configuration requires Redis.

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.
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).

Setting	Sensible value	Risk	Consequence if wrong
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Critical	Metabase requires PostgreSQL; any other engine breaks startup.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Critical	Disabling breaks all database connections (Auth Proxy sidecar required).
memory_limit	4Gi	Critical	Under 2 GiB the JVM crashes with OutOfMemoryError on startup.
db_name / db_user	set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all application data.
enable_backup_import	false unless restoring	Critical	Enabling without a valid backup_uri fails the import job.
application_version	increment carefully	Critical	Metabase migrations are one-way; downgrading corrupts the schema.
startup_probe.failure_threshold	15 (≥ 15)	High	Reducing causes premature container kills before the JVM completes startup.
min_instance_count	1 for production	High	0 causes 60–120s cold starts; startup probe failures on first request.
cpu_limit	2000m	High	Under 500m JVM JIT compilation stalls startup, triggering probe failures.
cpu_always_allocated	true if using scheduled subscriptions/pulses/DB-sync scans	Medium	Defaults false (request-based billing); scheduled subscriptions/pulses/DB-sync scans run with no inbound request and are throttled to near-zero CPU, so they may not complete unless flipped to true.
enable_iap / ingress_settings	IAP on; internal-and-cloud-load-balancing	High	Metabase login page is otherwise publicly reachable.
backup_retention_days	7 (raise for prod)	Medium	Too short for compliance retention.
timeout_seconds	300	Medium	Reducing below 120s aborts in-flight analytical queries.
enable_auto_password_rotation	false	Medium	Enabling without sufficient rotation_propagation_delay_sec causes brief 500 errors during rotation.
enable_redis	false	Low	Metabase does not use Redis; enabling has no effect.

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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. Metabase-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Metabase_Common.

Related guides

• Hands-on lab: Metabase on Cloud Run — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
• Metabase on GKE Autopilot — the same application on Kubernetes, for when you need the other deployment target.
• Metabase Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.
• Deployed alongside Odoo on Cloud Run, Paperless-ngx on Google Cloud Run, OnlyOffice on Google Cloud Run, Passbolt on Google Cloud Run in the Integrated ERP Platform solution.