OpenClaw on Northflank

Northflank is the second platform the docs describe with the same sentence they use for Railway: the easiest no-terminal-on-the-server path, because the platform runs the Gateway for you and you reach it through the web Control UI. The page is short because the setup is: a template, three environment variables, a volume, and a URL. Here is the sequence, what you get at the end, the one command the docs run from the platform shell, how a channel is connected, and where this option sits beside the other one-click hosts.

The steps

• Open the Deploy OpenClaw template, create a Northflank account if you do not have one, and click the deploy button.
• Set the three required variables: the Gateway token, a strong random value; the state directory under the data path; and the workspace directory under the data path.
• Deploy the stack, wait for the build and run to complete, open the resources view, then open the OpenClaw service.
• Open the public URL at the openclaw path and connect with the shared secret; the template uses the token by default, or the password if you switch auth.

This is the easiest "no terminal on the server" path: Northflank runs the Gateway for you.

What you get

A hosted Gateway with the Control UI, and persistent storage on a Northflank volume mounted at the data path, so the config file, the shared and per-agent SQLite auth stores, channel and provider state, sessions and the workspace all survive redeploys. From the platform shell the docs run the read-only doctor preflight with JSON output to confirm the deployment, the same check the Railway page uses.

Channels and what comes next

• Connect a channel from the Control UI at the openclaw path, or run onboarding over SSH for the channel instructions; the docs list Telegram first as the fastest, just a bot token, then Discord, then everything else.
• The next steps the page links are the three that apply to every install: set up messaging channels, configure the Gateway, and keep OpenClaw up to date.
• Backups are the same archive as anywhere else, run from the platform shell, and the volume is what makes a restore land somewhere persistent.

OpenClaw on Railway is the near-identical template on the other platform, and OpenClaw on Render the declarative blueprint version with a plan-and-disk rule of its own.

What one click leaves to you

The platform runs the Gateway; the model bill, the channel policies, the pairing approvals, the token and the updates are still yours, exactly as on the other one-click hosts. OpenClaw on Telegram is the channel the docs suggest first, and OpenClaw backup and restore the archive that moves an instance elsewhere if you outgrow the platform.

On Diali

Diali is the managed end of that spectrum: the template is replaced by an instance per assistant, the token by a dashboard session, and the updates by a release we test first. Hosted OpenClaw on Diali is the assistant and One-click hosts compared sets one-click hosts beside it.

• A template, three variables, a volume, a URL.
• The Control UI at the openclaw path with the shared secret.
• State survives redeploys on the volume.