Karakeep on Render

Self-hosted bookmark-everything app: official Karakeep AIO image, Meilisearch full-text search, and headless Chrome for crawling.

Template repository: render-examples/karakeep-render-template

Deploy Karakeep on Render without building the Turborepo monorepo. This template uses the official ghcr.io/karakeep-app/karakeep image, wires Meilisearch and headless Chrome on Render's private network, and generates auth secrets for you.

At a glance: ~$24–28/mo (Oregon, Starter plans) · first deploy ~5–10 min · Starter web plan · no LLM keys at Apply time

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Deploy

1. Click Deploy to Render and fork into your GitHub account.
2. On Apply, confirm karakeep, meilisearch, chrome, and both disks. Leave OPENAI_API_KEY empty.
3. Wait for Live (~5–10 min).
4. Open the karakeep web service URL and create your account.
5. Optional: set OPENAI_API_KEY on the karakeep service for AI tagging and summarization.

curl -sS https://<your-service>.onrender.com/api/health
# {"status":"ok"}

Docs: docs.karakeep.app

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What's included

flowchart LR
  user["Browser / extensions"] --> web["karakeep"]
  web --> meili[("Meilisearch")]
  web --> disk[/"5 GB disk"/]
  web --> chrome["headless Chrome"]

Loading

Resource	Plan	Role
karakeep	Starter	Official AIO image + workers, SQLite on disk at /data
meilisearch	Starter	Full-text search (getmeili/meilisearch)
chrome	Starter	Crawling, screenshots, JS execution
karakeep-data	5 GB disk	Bookmarks, assets, SQLite
meilisearch-data	1 GB disk	Search index

Default region: oregon (change in render.yaml).

Use it for: read-it-later · link archiving · AI-tagged bookmarks · team lists · RSS hoarding

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Environment variables

At Apply: no secrets required.

Auto-generated (do not rotate casually):

Variable	Purpose
NEXTAUTH_SECRET	Session signing
MEILI_MASTER_KEY	Shared Meilisearch auth (karakeep + meilisearch)

Wired for you: NEXTAUTH_URL, MEILI_ADDR, BROWSER_WEB_URL (via private DNS host), DATA_DIR.

Blueprint defaults and optional overrides

Set in render.yaml:

Variable	Value
DATA_DIR	/data
MEILI_ADDR	http://meilisearch:7700
DB_WAL_MODE	true

Optional after deploy: OPENAI_API_KEY, OLLAMA_BASE_URL, and others listed in .env.example and Karakeep env docs.

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Cost

Resource	~USD/mo
karakeep (Starter)	7
meilisearch (Starter)	7
chrome (Starter)	7
6 GB disks (5 + 1)	~3
Total	~24–28

LLM usage is separate. Upgrade karakeep to Standard if you OOM on large imports or heavy crawling.

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Customize

• Pin Karakeep version: change the FROM tag in docker/Dockerfile.render-karakeep, push, Sync Blueprint.
• Custom domain: add on the karakeep web service in the Dashboard (TLS automatic).
• Disable signups: set DISABLE_SIGNUPS=true on karakeep after creating your account.

Ops: Disk snapshots via Render. Logs: Dashboard → karakeep → Logs, or render logs -r <id> --tail. Disk = single instance only on the web service.

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Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
Chrome pserv exit 128	Do not use dockerCommand on runtime: image. This template builds chrome from Dockerfile.render-chrome.
Crawling fails / no screenshots	Confirm chrome pserv is Live. Check BROWSER_WEB_HOST is set (entrypoint builds BROWSER_WEB_URL).
Search disabled	MEILI_MASTER_KEY must match on karakeep and meilisearch (shared env group handles this).
Login loops	Confirm NEXTAUTH_URL matches your public web URL (wired from RENDER_EXTERNAL_URL).

More issues: GitHub issues · upstream Karakeep

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FAQ

LLM keys at deploy? No. Add OPENAI_API_KEY after sign-in if you want AI tagging.

Fork manually? No. One-click creates your fork.

Free tier? Starter paid plans required for web + two private services + disks.

Same as Docker Compose? Same three services; Render uses private DNS slugs instead of compose service names.

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Limits

• Disk on web service limits karakeep to one instance (no autoscaling)
• Starter plan may OOM on very large libraries; bump to Standard if needed
• No bundled Ollama in this template (add your own service if needed)
• Same region for all three services and disks

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Security & license

TLS at Render's edge. Protect NEXTAUTH_SECRET and MEILI_MASTER_KEY. Report upstream vulns to karakeep-app/karakeep.

• Karakeep: AGPL-3.0