LibreChat is an open-source, ChatGPT-style web UI that supports OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, local OpenAI-compatible endpoints, and more — with MongoDB-backed conversation history and Meilisearch-powered search. This guide deploys LibreChat using its official Compose manifest plus a Traefik override for automatic HTTPS. By the end, you'll have LibreChat running with a registration page and multi-provider chat at your domain over HTTPS.
Clone LibreChat and Prepare the Environment
1. Clone the LibreChat repository and check out a stable tag:
$ git clone https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat.git
$ cd LibreChat
$ git checkout tags/v0.8.3
2. Find the Meilisearch data directory name pinned by this release:
$ grep -o 'meili_data_v[0-9.]*' docker-compose.yml | head -1
3. Create the required data directories (replace meili_data_v1.35.1 if the previous command printed a different name):
$ mkdir -p data-node images logs meili_data_v1.35.1 uploads
$ sudo chown -R 1000:1000 meili_data_v1.35.1
4. Copy the env template and uncomment the UID/GID lines:
$ cp .env.example .env
$ nano .env
UID=1000
GID=1000
Override the Compose Stack with Traefik
1. Create a Compose override that adds Traefik and wires the API to it:
$ nano docker-compose.override.yml
services:
api:
labels:
- "traefik.enable=true"
- "traefik.http.routers.librechat.rule=Host(`librechat.example.com`)"
- "traefik.http.routers.librechat.entrypoints=websecure"
- "traefik.http.routers.librechat.tls.certresolver=leresolver"
- "traefik.http.services.librechat.loadbalancer.server.port=3080"
volumes:
- ./librechat.yaml:/app/librechat.yaml
traefik:
image: traefik:v3.6.10
ports:
- "80:80"
- "443:443"
volumes:
- "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro"
- "./letsencrypt:/letsencrypt"
command:
- "--providers.docker=true"
- "--providers.docker.exposedbydefault=false"
- "--entrypoints.web.address=:80"
- "--entrypoints.websecure.address=:443"
- "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entrypoint.to=websecure"
- "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entrypoint.scheme=https"
- "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entrypoint.permanent=true"
- "--certificatesresolvers.leresolver.acme.httpchallenge=true"
- "--certificatesresolvers.leresolver.acme.httpchallenge.entrypoint=web"
- "--certificatesresolvers.leresolver.acme.email=admin@example.com"
- "--certificatesresolvers.leresolver.acme.storage=/letsencrypt/acme.json"
2. Create an empty LibreChat configuration file (mounted by the override):
$ touch librechat.yaml
Start the Stack
1. Bring everything up:
$ docker compose up -d
Compose starts the LibreChat API, MongoDB, Meilisearch, and Traefik. Traefik requests a TLS certificate from Let's Encrypt over the HTTP-01 challenge and routes HTTPS to LibreChat on port 3080.
2. Verify the containers are running:
$ docker compose ps
3. Tail the logs:
$ docker compose logs --tail=50
You should see MongoDB initialize, Meilisearch start, Traefik register the route, and the LibreChat API listening on port 3080.
Register and Sign In
1. Open the registration page in a browser:
https://librechat.example.com/register
2. Fill in your name, username, email, and password and click **Continue.**
3. Sign in with the new credentials — the dashboard loads with the model selector and conversation interface.
To enable Google / GitHub / Discord / OpenID Connect sign-up, set ALLOW_SOCIAL_LOGIN=true and ALLOW_SOCIAL_REGISTRATION=true in .env and restart the stack.
Next Steps
LibreChat is running and served securely over HTTPS. From here you can:
- Plug in API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure, Gemini, or OpenRouter in
.env - Point LibreChat at a local OpenAI-compatible endpoint (Ollama, LocalAI) via
librechat.yaml - Enable file uploads, RAG, and image generation through the dashboard settings
For the full guide with additional tips, visit the original article on Vultr Docs.
