Node-RED on Google Cloud Run

Node-RED is an open-source flow-based programming tool for wiring together IoT devices, APIs, and online services through a visual browser-based editor. This module deploys Node-RED 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 Node-RED 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 NodeRED costs on RAD, and how that compares

NodeRED on RAD's Cloud Run module costs about US$31 a month, with the module fee charged once in RAD credits. Need NodeRED to stay up continuously, scale across pods, or run beside other Kubernetes workloads — or see the GKE guide for that option. If you only need it occasionally — a demo, a seasonal project, something you're evaluating — a RAD-managed project can be deleted and restored within 30 days for a handful of credits (under US$1) instead of paying for it to sit idle. See Pause it for free, below. Figures are as at 8 October 2026; sources are listed at the end of this section.

What you pay on RAD

RAD deploys NodeRED, which is open source, so there is no licence fee per user. You pay for three things:

	In a Google Cloud project you own	In a project RAD manages for you
Module fee, once per deployment	40 credits (US$4 at the top-up price)	36 credits (10% lower)
Build time	About 3-6 credits per build	The same
Google Cloud running cost	Billed by Google to your own billing account, about US$31 a month for the default configuration (table below)	Metered hourly in credits; RAD publishes 9 credits a day, about 270 a month (about US$27 at the top-up price, US$22 at the Scale plan's rate)
Who owns what	You own the project and its billing; RAD deploys and updates it	RAD owns the project, with guardrails, quotas and budget alerts; you get console access, and a minimum purchased balance is held in reserve

10 credits cost US$1 on a one-off top-up, and less on a monthly plan. In a project RAD manages, the database, file server and network are shared by every application in the project, so a second application does not add a second set of them.

Default running cost in your own project (us-central1, Google list prices):

Resource (module default)	Per month
Cloud Run, 1x vCPU / 1 GiB (scaleToZero)	US$11.58
NFS/cache file server (small VM)	US$13.43
Cloud NAT and networking	US$5
Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups)	US$1
Total	about US$31

How it compares

• No turnkey managed SaaS was verified for NodeRED itself, so the honest comparison is a self-managed server: a Hetzner CPX22 (2 vCPU/4 GB) costs about $24/month, a DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4 GB Droplet about $24/month, and a GCP Compute Engine e2-standard-2 (2 vCPU/8 GB) about $49/month.
• This is a light workload — a cheaper, smaller VPS class than the reference boxes below would also do the job; the figures are shown for a like-for-like comparison.
• No managed SaaS offering for this exact open-source project could be verified with a current, published price, so no figure is given here. Node-RED is usually run alongside other automation infrastructure rather than bought as a standalone subscription, so the realistic alternative is a small self-managed VPS.
• The VPS price is not the whole cost. On a bare VPS you are also the one patching the OS, rotating backups and keeping the database (if any) healthy. RAD's managed Cloud SQL, Secret Manager and monitoring cover that for you, which is the real argument for RAD over a cheaper box — not the sticker price.

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

If NodeRED runs in a project RAD manages for you, you have a second option that goes well beyond scaling to zero: delete the whole project, and restore it within 30 days for close to nothing. This suits NodeRED you only need occasionally — a demo, an evaluation, a seasonal project — far better than running it continuously.

• How it works. Deleting a RAD-managed project unlinks its billing first, then asks Google to delete the project. Google does not remove the project immediately: it keeps it, recoverable, for 30 days. Because billing is already unlinked, nothing is charged while it waits. Unlike deleting one module, this does not tear down the VM or the compute resource one by one — the whole project, and everything in it, simply stops.
• Restoring costs a few credits, not a rebuild. Within 30 days, the project's owner can restore it. RAD asks Google to undelete the project and reattaches its billing account, then asks you to run Update on each deployment to confirm everything came back. Because nothing was individually destroyed, that Update finds the same resources already there — it is a check, not a rebuild, and an Update never charges the module fee again. That costs roughly a handful of credits (under US$1) in total for a typical 2-3-deployment chain.
• So a month of occasional use can cost a few dollars, not US$31. Deploy NodeRED, use it for a while, delete the project. Restore it next time you want it, confirm with Update, and delete it again when you're done. You pay only for the module fee once, the builds, and whatever time NodeRED was actually live.
• What this needs. You must own the project (not a bring-your-own one RAD only manages billing for), and you restore it yourself within the 30 days — after that, Google deletes it for good. Restoring is admitted like creating a new project: your purchased credit balance must still clear the tier's floor (100 credits for the sandbox tier most study and demo use fits). Google says most services are fully working again within 36 hours of a restore.
• One real gap: nightly backups don't survive. Backups are written to a bucket inside the project, and that bucket is not protected by Cloud Storage's soft-delete, 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 NodeRED and want to keep that work, copy a backup out (to Google Drive, or a bucket outside the project) before you delete. For a default installation with nothing irreplaceable in it, this does not matter.

Pay only while you use it, the other way: delete and redeploy

The option above only applies to a RAD-managed project; in your own project, or once the 30-day window has passed, the way to stop paying is to delete the deployment and deploy it again when you need it.

• What a redeploy costs. The module fee again plus the builds: about 45 credits (US$4.50) in your own project, or 41 credits in a RAD-managed one. Deleting saves money once NodeRED would otherwise sit unused for about 4 days or more in your own project (about US$1.03 a day), or about 5 days or more in a RAD-managed one (9 credits a day).
• Most of the running cost is usually the database and any shared file/cache VM. They stop only when nothing else in the project uses them, so deleting NodeRED while something else shares the project saves only this app's own compute part.
• Keep your 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 NodeRED 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 NodeRED for a client from a ring-fenced wallet it funds, and settles with the client directly. If the wallet runs low, billing pauses and the data is kept, so nobody receives an unexpected charge. At the end the partner hands the project over and the deployments become the client's own.
• Credits can be bought in more than 20 currencies, including XAF, XOF, NGN, GHS, KES and ZAR, by card, bank transfer or mobile money.

Sources (8 October 2026): Google Cloud list prices from the Cloud Billing Catalog API; Delete and restore projects for the 30-day recovery window and what it says about Cloud Storage objects without soft delete; RAD fees and the daily-credit estimates from radmodules.dev/pricing. Prices change; check each source before relying on a figure.

1. Overview

Node-RED runs as a Node.js container on Cloud Run v2 (gen2) listening on port 1880. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	Node.js service, 1 vCPU / 1 GiB by default, request-based autoscaling
Persistent flow storage	Filestore (NFS)	Flows, credentials, and installed nodes in /data (requires gen2)
Object storage	Cloud Storage	A dedicated application data bucket
Context storage	Redis (optional)	Disabled by default; enables cross-restart and cross-instance context sharing
Credential secret	Secret Manager	Auto-generated NODE_RED_CREDENTIAL_SECRET encrypts flow credentials
Ingress	Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing	Default run.app URL, optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• No database is required. Node-RED stores all state in its /data directory; database_type defaults to "NONE".
• NFS is enabled by default. The /data directory is mounted from a Filestore share (requires execution_environment = "gen2") so flows, credentials, and installed nodes survive container restarts and new deployments.
• Scale-to-zero is supported (min_instance_count = 0). Set to 1 for production webhook workloads to avoid cold-start delays and missed webhooks during the NFS remount window.
• max_instance_count = 1 by default. Node-RED is not designed for active-active horizontal scaling; each instance has its own in-memory context. Increase only when using Redis-backed external context storage.
• NODE_RED_CREDENTIAL_SECRET is auto-generated. It encrypts all stored flow credentials and is kept in Secret Manager. Rotating it after flows are deployed renders existing credentials unreadable.
• Health probes use HTTP GET /, which returns the editor UI once Node-RED is ready (30-second initial delay is sufficient).

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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 Node-RED service

Node-RED runs as a Cloud Run v2 service that autoscales by request load between the minimum and maximum instance counts. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts.

• Console: Cloud Run → select the service for revisions, traffic, logs, and metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run revisions list --service <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

See App_CloudRun for scaling, concurrency, execution environment, and traffic splitting.

B. Filestore (NFS) — persistent flow storage

Node-RED stores all persistent data — flows (flows.json), encrypted credentials (flows_cred.json), installed palette nodes, and the settings file — in its /data directory. A Filestore NFS share is mounted at /data (gen2 required) so data survives container restarts and new service revisions.

• Console: Filestore → Instances for the NFS share.
• CLI:

  gcloud filestore instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  # Inspect the mounted volume from an active instance:
  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" \
    --format='value(spec.template.spec.volumes)'

See App_CloudRun for the NFS mount, GCS Fuse, and CMEK.

C. Cloud Storage

A dedicated GCS bucket is provisioned for Node-RED application data (flow exports, backup archives). The service account is granted access automatically.

• Console: Cloud Storage → Buckets.
• CLI:

  gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud storage ls gs://<data-bucket>/          # bucket name is in the Outputs

See App_CloudRun for CMEK options.

D. Secret Manager — flow credential encryption

NODE_RED_CREDENTIAL_SECRET is generated automatically during deployment and stored as a Secret Manager secret. Node-RED uses this key to encrypt all credentials stored in flows. No other application-specific secrets are generated by this module.

• 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.

E. Redis (optional context storage)

When enable_redis = true, Node-RED is configured to store flow context externally in Redis, allowing context data to persist across instance restarts and to be shared between multiple instances. Redis is disabled by default.

• Console: Memorystore → Redis (if using a managed instance).
• CLI:

  redis-cli -h <redis-host> ping
  redis-cli -h <redis-host> info keyspace

When enable_redis = true and redis_host is empty but enable_nfs = true, the NFS server IP is used as the Redis host; otherwise redis_host must be set explicitly.

F. Networking & ingress

The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default. An external HTTPS load balancer with a custom domain, Cloud CDN, and Cloud Armor can be layered on; ingress settings and VPC egress control connectivity.

• Console: Cloud Run (service URL); Network services → Load balancing.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)'
  gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"

See App_CloudRun.

G. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Container logs flow to Cloud Logging; Cloud Run 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. Node-RED Application Behaviour

• No database, no initialization job. Node-RED stores all state in /data. No Cloud SQL instance is provisioned and no schema initialization job is required. The first start creates the default flow files automatically if /data is empty.
• Flow credential encryption. NODE_RED_CREDENTIAL_SECRET is injected at runtime from Secret Manager. This key encrypts the flows_cred.json file on the NFS share. Changing or rotating the key after flows are deployed renders all stored credentials (API keys, passwords, tokens) unreadable.
• Safe mode. NODE_RED_ENABLE_SAFE_MODE is always set to "false", ensuring flows execute on startup. Override it to "true" via environment_variables to start Node-RED with flows disabled for debugging.
• Scale-to-zero and cold starts. With min_instance_count = 0, Node-RED scales to zero when idle. On scale-up the NFS volume must remount before the health check passes (roughly 10–20 seconds). Webhooks fired during this window may be lost. Set min_instance_count = 1 for production webhook workloads.
• Health probe. Both startup and liveness probes send HTTP GET to /, which returns the editor UI once Node-RED is ready. A 30-second initial delay is sufficient.
• Scheduled tasks. Node-RED has no built-in scheduled commands. Use cron_jobs to provision Cloud Scheduler-triggered Cloud Run jobs for periodic maintenance tasks such as flow exports or cache flushes:

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

• Accessing the editor. Browse to the service_url output and log in. For production deployments, enable IAP (enable_iap = true) to gate access with Google identity authentication — the editor exposes full flow editing and credential management.

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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 Node-RED 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	nodered	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
display_name	Node-RED	Friendly name shown in the Console.
application_version	latest	Image tag for nodered/node-red. Pin to a specific version (e.g. 4.0.9) for reproducible deployments.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
cpu_limit	1000m	CPU per instance; 1 vCPU is sufficient for most deployments.
memory_limit	1Gi	Memory per instance; raise to 2Gi for flows that process large payloads.
min_instance_count	0	Minimum instances. 0 enables scale-to-zero; set to 1 for production webhook workloads.
max_instance_count	1	Maximum instances. Keep at 1 unless flows are stateless or Redis-backed.
execution_environment	gen2	Must be gen2 for NFS volume mounts to function.
timeout_seconds	300	Maximum request duration before a 504 is returned.
cpu_always_allocated	false	When false, CPU is throttled at idle. Set true only if background tasks require continuous CPU.
enable_image_mirroring	true	Mirror from Docker Hub into Artifact Registry to avoid rate limits.
traffic_split	[]	Allocates traffic across revisions for canary/blue-green rollouts.
max_revisions_to_retain	7	Cloud Run revisions to keep after each deployment.

Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control

Variable	Default	Description
ingress_settings	all	Which networks may reach the service. Use "internal-and-cloud-load-balancing" with Cloud Armor for production webhooks.
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	Outbound routing through the VPC connector.
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in. Strongly recommended for production.
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. Do not set NODE_RED_CREDENTIAL_SECRET here.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name.
secret_rotation_period	2592000s	Secret Manager rotation notification period.
secret_propagation_delay	30	Seconds to wait after secret creation before proceeding.

Group 7 — Backup & Restore

Variable	Default	Description
backup_schedule	0 2 * * *	Automated NFS backup cron (UTC). Leave empty to disable.
backup_retention_days	7	Retention; raise for production/compliance.
enable_backup_import / backup_source / backup_uri	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 — NFS Instance & Custom SQL

Variable	Default	Description
nfs_instance_name / nfs_instance_base_name	(auto)	Existing NFS instance / base name for an inline one.
enable_custom_sql_scripts / custom_sql_scripts_*	off	Not applicable to Node-RED; kept for API compatibility.

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

Variable	Default	Description
enable_cloud_armor	false	Provision Global HTTPS LB + Cloud Armor WAF. application_domains is optional — a nip.io certificate is derived when unset.
application_domains	[]	Custom hostnames with Google-managed SSL.
enable_cdn	false	Enable Cloud CDN on the LB backend. Requires enable_cloud_armor = true.
admin_ip_ranges	[]	CIDRs exempted from WAF rules.
max_images_to_retain / delete_untagged_images / image_retention_days	(set)	Artifact Registry cleanup policy.

Group 11 — Storage & Filesystem

Variable	Default	Description
enable_nfs	true	Shared Filestore volume for Node-RED's /data directory. Strongly recommended. Requires gen2.
nfs_mount_path	/data	Must match Node-RED's native data directory.
create_cloud_storage / storage_buckets / gcs_volumes	(set)	Data bucket / additional buckets / GCS Fuse mounts.
manage_storage_kms_iam / enable_artifact_registry_cmek	false	CMEK options.

Group 12 — Credential Secret

Variable	Default	Description
database_password_length	32	Length of the auto-generated NODE_RED_CREDENTIAL_SECRET (16–64).
enable_auto_password_rotation	false	Automated credential secret rotation. Rotating the key renders existing flow credentials unreadable.
rotation_propagation_delay_sec	90	Seconds to wait after rotation before restarting the service.

Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Node-RED requires no init jobs. Provide custom jobs for flow imports or palette installations.
cron_jobs	[]	Recurring Cloud Run jobs triggered by Cloud Scheduler.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	HTTP /, 30s delay	HTTP probe against the Node-RED editor path.
liveness_probe	HTTP /, 30s delay	Liveness probe — restarts the container if the editor is unresponsive.
uptime_check_config	disabled, path /	Cloud Monitoring uptime check.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 21 — Redis Context Storage

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	false	Enable Redis for Node-RED context storage.
redis_host	""	Redis endpoint. Required when enable_redis = true (unless enable_nfs = true).
redis_port	6379	Redis port.
redis_auth	""	Optional Redis auth password (sensitive).

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 Node-RED 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).
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets.
network_name / network_exists / regions	VPC network, presence, regions.
container_image / container_registry	Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo.
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels / uptime_check_names	Monitoring status, channels, uptime checks.
initialization_jobs	Names of any 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
enable_nfs	true	Critical	Without NFS, all flows, credentials, and installed nodes are lost on every instance restart or new deployment.
NODE_RED_CREDENTIAL_SECRET (from database_password_length)	auto-generated	Critical	Encrypts all flow credentials. Rotating or changing the key after flows are deployed makes existing credentials permanently unreadable.
enable_auto_password_rotation	false	Critical	Automatic rotation changes the encryption key; all stored flow credentials become inaccessible. Only enable with a re-encryption procedure in place.
application_name	set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates all GCP resources and disconnects the NFS share.
enable_backup_import	false unless restoring	Critical	Enabling without a valid backup_uri fails the restore job.
execution_environment	gen2	High	NFS mounts require gen2; using gen1 causes mount failures and container startup errors.
max_instance_count	1	High	Node-RED is not designed for active-active scaling. Multiple instances without shared context cause conflicting state.
min_instance_count	1 for webhooks	High	Scale-to-zero causes cold starts of 10–20 seconds; webhooks fired during NFS remount are lost.
nfs_mount_path	/data	High	Must match Node-RED's native data directory. Changing it routes writes to ephemeral storage.
database_type	NONE	High	Setting to MYSQL or POSTGRES provisions an unnecessary Cloud SQL sidecar.
enable_redis without redis_host	set redis_host explicitly	High	Without NFS fallback, an empty Redis host causes context storage failures.
enable_iap	true for production	High	The editor exposes full flow editing and credential management and should not be publicly accessible.
ingress_settings	internal-and-cloud-load-balancing for prod	Medium	"internal" blocks all external webhooks; "all" exposes the service directly without WAF.
memory_limit	1Gi	Medium	Flows processing large payloads or using image-processing nodes may require 2Gi.
backup_retention_days	7 (raise for prod)	Medium	Too short for compliance retention.

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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. Node-RED-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in NodeRED_Common.

Related guides

• Hands-on lab: NodeRED on Cloud Run — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
• Node-RED on GKE Autopilot — the same application on Kubernetes, for when you need the other deployment target.
• NodeRED Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.
• Deployed alongside n8n on Google Cloud Run, Activepieces on Google Cloud Run, Ntfy on Google Cloud Run, EvolutionAPI on Google Cloud Run in the Workflow Automation Hub solution.