Node.js version too old for Vite 7.x – Need Node 20.19.0+ or 22.12.0+
ben123434567876543
FREEOP

7 months ago

Hello Railway team,

I’m trying to deploy a modern React frontend using Vite 7.x on Railway, but the build fails due to Node.js version incompatibility: error vite@7.1.0: The engine "node" is incompatible with this module. Expected version "^20.19.0 || >=22.12.0". Got "20.18.1"

Details:

  • My repo contains a .nvmrc file set to  20.19.0 and  "engines": { "node": ">=20.18.0 <21.0.0" }  in package.json.

  • Railway only provides Node 20.18.1 (too old for Vite 7.x) or Node 22.11.0 (too early, not supported by Vite 7.x).

  • Vite 7.x (and other modern tools like Next.js, Astro, etc.) require at least Node 20.19.0 or Node 22.12.0 due to upstream ESM loader changes.

Could you please:

  • Add Node 20.19.0 (or newer) and/or Node 22.12.0+ to the available Node versions on Railway?

  • Or, let me know if there is a way to force Railway to use a custom Node version for my service?

Thank you for your help!

Ben

$10 Bounty
+11

5 Replies

Railway
BOT

7 months ago

Hey there! We've found the following might help you get unblocked faster:

If you find the answer from one of these, please let us know by solving the thread!

Railway

Hey there! We've found the following might help you get unblocked faster: - [🧵 Persistent SSL Error on Production Environment](https://station.railway.com/questions/persistent-ssl-error-on-production-envir-dd91e8b1) If you find the answer from one of these, please let us know by solving the thread!

ben123434567876543
FREEOP

7 months ago

nope

mateodemuynck
PRO

7 months ago

Hey,

You can add the NIXPACKS_NODE_VERSION environment variable to your project and set it to 21 it should work (https://nixpacks.com/docs/providers/node)

mateodemuynck

Hey,You can add the NIXPACKS_NODE_VERSION environment variable to your project and set it to 21 it should work (https://nixpacks.com/docs/providers/node)

ben123434567876543
FREEOP

7 months ago

didn't work but thanks, trying with a Dockerfile now, don't know if it's going to work

markothedev
HOBBY

7 months ago

1. Railway supports Docker deployments so use dockerfile for just deployment 
create a dockerfile and add this..then deploy to railway
    FROM node:20.19.0-alpine
    WORKDIR /app
    COPY package*.json ./
    RUN npm install
    COPY . .
    RUN npm run build
    EXPOSE 3000
    CMD ["npm", "start"]

2. Use Railway's Nixpacks with custom Node version: You can try adding a nixpacks.toml file to specify the Node version:
    create a toml file and add this
    [phases.setup]
    nixPkgs = ["nodejs-20_x"]
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