Wallabag on Google Cloud Run

Wallabag is a free, open-source, self-hosted "read it later" article archiving app — a Pocket alternative. Save articles from a browser extension, bookmarklet, mobile app, or the REST API, then read them later in a clean, distraction-free view with full-text search, tagging, annotations, and RSS feeds of your saved items. This module deploys Wallabag 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 Wallabag 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 Wallabag costs on RAD, and how that compares

Running Wallabag on Cloud Run in your own Google Cloud project costs about US$70.19/month in Google Cloud charges, on top of a one-off 75-credit RAD module fee (US$7.50) charged once at deploy time. Wallabag is a self-hosted read-it-later article archiver, and its managed MySQL database is most of this running cost. In a RAD-managed project the module fee drops to 67.5 credits (10% lower) — see Pause it for free below — 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	US$70.19/month, billed by Google at list price	~26 credits/day (about 780/month, US$78 at the top-up price), metered at list price plus RAD's margin

10 credits cost US$1 on a one-off top-up, and less on a monthly plan.

Default running cost in your own project

Resource (module default)	Per month
Cloud Run, 1x vCPU / 2 GiB (scaleToZero)	US$13.16
Cloud SQL for MySQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD	US$51.02
Cloud NAT and networking	US$5
Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups)	US$1
Total	US$70.19

How it compares

• wallabag's own creators sell official hosting at wallabag.it: plans run from about €11/year (roughly $1/month) up to a €30/year "heart" subscription that just adds extra project support on identical features — verified on wallabag.it, 8 October 2026. That is far cheaper than RAD's own-project running cost here, because wallabag.it is a shared, multi-tenant service built for personal use; it is not a like-for-like comparison against a dedicated, isolated project with your own Cloud SQL instance and full data control.
• A self-managed VPS comparison, sized to Wallabag's 1 vCPU / 2 GiB default: a Hetzner CPX22 or DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4GB Droplet runs about $24/month — cheaper in cash terms, plus your own time for MySQL backups and patching, which RAD's managed Cloud SQL and Secret Manager cover for you.
• For simple personal use, wallabag.it's own hosting is the cheapest option by far; RAD's case here is a dedicated project — useful for a team archive, a self-serve lab deployment, or anyone who wants the data to never leave infrastructure they control.

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 Wallabag 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 Wallabag back means redeploying from scratch. That costs about 78-81 credits in your own project, or about 70.5-73.5 credits in a RAD-managed one.

Deleting only saves money once Wallabag would otherwise sit unused long enough to clear that redeploy cost against its own running cost — about 3 days or more in your own project (about US$2.34 a day), or about 3 days or more in a RAD-managed one (26 credits a day).

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; wallabag.it hosting.

1. Overview

Wallabag runs as a PHP/Symfony container (nginx + php-fpm under s6-overlay) on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	PHP/Symfony service, 1 vCPU / 2 GiB by default, serverless autoscaling; scale-to-zero by default
Database	Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0	Required — Wallabag_Common fixes the engine; PostgreSQL is not supported
Object storage	Cloud Storage	A generic data bucket is provisioned, but Wallabag does not read or write it — all content lives in MySQL
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated APP_SECRET (Symfony security token); database password
Ingress	Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing	Default run.app URL; optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• MySQL 8.0 is mandatory. The database engine is fixed by Wallabag_Common; selecting any other engine breaks the deployment.
• enable_cloudsql_volume = false. Cloud Run connects to Cloud SQL over private-IP TCP, not the Auth Proxy Unix socket. The GKE variant instead uses the Auth Proxy sidecar on 127.0.0.1.
• Single Secret Manager secret. APP_SECRET (a Symfony security token) is generated automatically, overriding Wallabag's publicly-known baked-in default. There is no separate generated admin-password secret.
• Scale-to-zero is enabled by default (min_instance_count = 0, max_instance_count = 1). Cold starts add latency to the first request after idle; set min_instance_count = 1 to avoid this.
• enable_nfs defaults true but is functionally unused. It mounts Cloud Filestore NFS at /var/lib/wallabag, but Wallabag's image WORKDIR is /var/www/wallabag — nothing writes to the mounted path. Safe to disable.
• No separate migration job. Wallabag's own bin/console wallabag:install handles both schema creation and first-run setup in one idempotent step.
• Self-registration is disabled. SYMFONY__ENV__FOSUSER_REGISTRATION = "false" — only the bootstrapped administrator account exists until an operator explicitly enables sign-up or creates more accounts.

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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 Wallabag service

Wallabag 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. Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0

Wallabag stores all application data (saved articles, tags, users, annotations) in a managed Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0 instance. The service connects over the instance's private IP via TCP (not the Auth Proxy socket — Cloud Run's enable_cloudsql_volume defaults false for this module). On first deploy, a db-init job creates the application database and user, followed by wallabag-install, which runs Wallabag's own installer to create the schema.

• 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. Cloud Storage

A generic data bucket is provisioned by default (via the Foundation's storage_buckets input), but Wallabag itself never reads or writes it — all content lives in MySQL, and gcs_volumes (which would fuse-mount a bucket into the container) is empty by default.

• Console: Cloud Storage → Buckets.
• CLI:

  gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT"

D. Secret Manager

One secret is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager: APP_SECRET (materialised under that simple key; aliased onto the real SYMFONY__ENV__SECRET name by the wrapper entrypoint). The database password is managed separately by the foundation.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

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

See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.

E. 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.

• 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 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. Wallabag Application Behaviour

• Two-stage init chain, not a Laravel-style separate migrate step. db-init (mysql:8.0-debian) creates the empty application database and user and grants privileges. wallabag-install then depends on db-init and reuses the same custom app image (so the wrapper entrypoint's env aliasing still runs) with its command overridden to bin/console wallabag:install --env=prod -n. This single command performs both schema creation and first-run setup (including seeding the default administrator account) — there is no separate migration job to run on upgrades; re-running wallabag:install against an already-installed database is safe and idempotent.
• Health check behaviour. The startup probe is TCP on port 80 — it only needs nginx to bind, independent of installer progress. The liveness probe is HTTP GET /: an unauthenticated request to the root path returns an HTTP 302 redirect to /login, which both Cloud Run's and Kubernetes' health-check semantics treat as a passing response (any 2xx–3xx). Do not expect a bare 200 from / — a 302 to /login is the expected, healthy result.

  curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" "$SERVICE_URL/"   # expect 302

• First-run administrator account. wallabag:install --env=prod -n creates Wallabag's own default administrator account using Wallabag's documented installation defaults (username and password both wallabag) — there is no Secret Manager secret holding a generated admin password. Change this password immediately after first login (Settings → your account → change password, or bin/console fos:user:change-password wallabag inside the container). New accounts cannot self-register (SYMFONY__ENV__FOSUSER_REGISTRATION = "false") — create additional users from the admin UI or with bin/console fos:user:create.
• 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 Wallabag 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	wallabag	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
display_name	Wallabag	Human-readable name shown in the Console.
application_version	latest	Base image tag for wallabag/wallabag. "latest" maps to a pinned tag (2.6.14) at build time via the app-specific WALLABAG_VERSION build ARG.
php_memory_limit, upload_max_filesize, post_max_size	512M / 64M / 64M	Declared for convention parity but not forwarded anywhere — setting these has no effect on the deployed container.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
container_image_source	custom	Builds the wrapper image via Cloud Build. "prebuilt" skips the DB/secret-aliasing wrapper entirely — do not use without your own translation.
cpu_limit	1000m	CPU per instance.
memory_limit	2Gi	Memory per instance.
min_instance_count	0	0 enables scale-to-zero.
max_instance_count	1	Autoscaling upper bound.
container_port	80	Wallabag's nginx listens on port 80.
execution_environment	gen2	Gen2 required for GCS Fuse mounts.
enable_cloudsql_volume	false	Cloud Run connects over private-IP TCP instead of the Auth Proxy socket.
enable_image_mirroring	true	Mirror the image into Artifact Registry.
container_protocol	http1	HTTP/1.1.

Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control

Variable	Default	Description
ingress_settings	all	Public ingress by default.
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	Route only RFC 1918 traffic via VPC.
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in.
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 override SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_* here — they're computed by the wrapper entrypoint at container start.
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_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

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.
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 the generic data GCS bucket. Not read or written by Wallabag.
enable_nfs	false	Functionally unused — mounted at /var/lib/wallabag, but Wallabag's image writes nothing there. Safe to disable.
gcs_volumes	[]	GCS Fuse volume mounts (requires gen2). Empty by default — nothing is mounted.
manage_storage_kms_iam / enable_artifact_registry_cmek	false	CMEK options.

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	MYSQL_8_0	Fixed by Wallabag_Common.
db_name / db_user	wallabag	Tenant-prefixed at deploy time. Immutable after first deploy.
database_password_length	32	Generated password length (16–64).
db_host_env_var_name / db_user_env_var_name / db_name_env_var_name / db_port_env_var_name / db_password_env_var_name	"" (all empty)	Unused by Wallabag — the wrapper entrypoint reads the standard DB_* vars directly and aliases them onto SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_* itself.

Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Leave empty to use the built-in db-init → wallabag-install chain.
cron_jobs	[]	No platform-scheduled recurring tasks by default.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	TCP, port 80, 30s delay, 20 retries	Only needs nginx to bind.
liveness_probe	HTTP GET /, 300s delay, 3 retries	Wallabag returns a 302 redirect to /login — a passing response.
uptime_check_config	{ enabled = true }	Cloud Monitoring uptime check.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 21 — Redis

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	false	Purely optional — only used by Wallabag's asynchronous bulk-import feature (Pocket/Instapaper import). Normal save/read/API usage never touches Redis.
redis_host	""	Redis endpoint.
redis_port	6379	Redis port.

Group 22 — VPC Service Controls & Audit Logging

Variable	Default	Description
enable_vpc_sc	false	Enforce a VPC-SC perimeter (requires organization_id).
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.
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.
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 (db-init, wallabag-install).
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.
cicd_enabled / github_repository_url / 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
DB driver env var (SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_DRIVER, hardcoded in entrypoint.sh)	must be set explicitly (pdo_mysql here)	Critical	Wallabag's shipped parameters.yml defaults database_driver to pdo_sqlite. Setting only SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_HOST/_PORT/_NAME/_USER/_PASSWORD with no explicit driver var still silently installs against a throwaway local SQLite file — the install "succeeds," the app appears to work, but all data lives in an ephemeral file wiped on every restart or redeploy, and MySQL is never touched. No error is raised. If this module is ever cloned as a template for another Symfony-based application, verify the DB driver env var is set explicitly — this class of failure is undetectable from the outside; only comparing the container's boot logs ("Configuring the SQLite database..." vs. a MySQL connection line) reveals it. See App_CloudRun and App_GKE for how the Foundation injects DB env vars generically — the app-specific translation and any missing pieces are always the calling module's responsibility.
db_name / db_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all saved articles.
APP_SECRET (auto-generated)	Never hand-edit in Secret Manager after first boot	High	Wallabag uses this as a Symfony security-signing key; changing it invalidates CSRF tokens and any signed URLs already issued.
Default administrator credentials (wallabag / wallabag, seeded by wallabag:install)	Change immediately after first login	High	The installer seeds Wallabag's own well-known default credentials — anyone who knows the service URL and the public default can log in until the password is changed.
enable_backup_import	false unless restoring	Critical	Enabling without a valid backup_uri fails the import job.
container_image_source	custom	Critical	Switching to prebuilt deploys the stock wallabag/wallabag image with no wrapper entrypoint — the DB and secret env-var aliasing never runs, so the app cannot reach MySQL at all.
min_instance_count	1 for production	Medium	Scale-to-zero (0) adds cold-start latency to the first request after idle.
enable_nfs	false unless needed for another purpose	Low / cost	Defaults true and provisions a Filestore share that Wallabag never uses — a needless recurring cost.
enable_cloud_armor	enable for production	Medium	The service 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. Wallabag-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Wallabag_Common.

Related guides

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