Hey everyone! I’ve been working for almost a year on a full-stack e-commerce platform that runs entirely on Railway, and it’s been one of the most technically rewarding builds I’ve done so far.

The goal was to create a modular architecture that could support multi-storefronts, supplier integrations, booking systems, and automated workflows, all while keeping deployments fast and infrastructure simple. Railway made that possible with its clean environment management and service linking.

Architecture Overview

• Backend: MedusaJS for the e-commerce engine (products, orders, inventory, payment lifecycle).

• Frontend: Two separate Next.js storefronts connected via Medusa’s REST and custom endpoints.

• Middleware: Custom Express.js layer for third-party integrations and background jobs.

• Databases: PostgreSQL for core commerce data and MongoDB for analytics and caching.

• Cache: Redis for session and notification management.

• CMS: Strapi for blog and product content management.

• Deployment: Everything is built and deployed through Railway.

Key Features

• Automated Product Sync (Cron Job):
  Every day, a cron job fetches product data from a supplier API.

  • New items are marked as proposed for review.

  • Missing items are set to draft for cleanup.

  • A notification system alerts admins of new proposed products upon login.

• Booking System Integration:
  A repair booking flow integrated with Cal.com, notifying each branch automatically.

• POS Checklist System:
  Pre-repair checklist integrated with our POS system, generating printed agreements for customers to sign.

• AWS Integration:

  • S3 for asset storage (product images, CMS uploads)

  • SES for transactional emails

  • CloudWatch for monitoring

• Payment Flow:
  Customized MedusaJS checkout using Stripe Checkout with support for Australian payment methods (AfterPay, Zip).

• 3rd PT marketing emails (easier to design)

Lessons Learned

• Railway’s environment variables made multi-service orchestration smooth — no messy .env juggling between dev/production.

• Logs and metrics in one dashboard helped debug complex sync operations faster than any other host I’ve used.

• Keeping Redis, Postgres, and Node services all in Railway simplified deployment pipelines significantly.

What’s Next

I’m currently designing a B2B platform on top of the same MedusaJS core with shared catalogs, role-based access, and partner-specific pricing. The goal is to evolve this from a consumer-focused system to a full B2B ecosystem, still fully hosted and orchestrated through Railway.

Plan to migrate AWS to Railway’s buckets.

Tips to save on railway?

enable serverless

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