Deploy Payload CMS 3.0 + Postgres on Kubernetes: Production-Ready Template

Deploying a modern headless CMS with a relational database on a cluster requires robust networking, persistent data management, and reliable lifecycle probes. This template provisions a high-availability configuration designed to deploy Payload CMS on Kubernetes. Running Payload Kubernetes manifests coordinates containerized Next.js standalone execution paths alongside an isolated PostgreSQL stateful storage engine.

What's Included

Architecture Overview

Traffic flows into the cluster hitting the payload-cms Service, which balances stateless traffic across application pods. Payload CMS connects over the internal network to the postgres StatefulSet using a headless service interface for predictable hostname resolution. Database tables seed automatically via an integrated initContainer that blocks the application server runtime from starting up until PostgreSQL fully accepts connections on port 5432.

Prerequisites

• Any local or cloud Kubernetes cluster matching the targeted environment specs
• PostgreSQL instance provisions automatically, or an external database network path
• Configured PersistentVolume provider within your active namespace context
• KubeKanvas CLI installed and running on your computer (Optional, if you want to use one-click deployment)

How to Deploy

1. Open the payload-production-config ConfigMap to verify regional configuration values.
2. Update the payload-production-secrets manifest with your base64-encoded database credentials and encryption keys.
3. Configure the persistent volume claim storage size to match your database allocation requirements.
4. Deploy the template to your cluster via the Play button in the top right bar. If you prefer to deploy manually, download the YAML and apply it with kubectl.
5. Wait for all pods to reach Running status. You can monitor progress in the Release Monitor screen.

How to Test

1. Port-forward the payload-cms service to your local machine using kubectl port-forward svc/payload-cms 3000:3000 -n production.
2. Navigate to http://localhost:3000/admin in your web browser to confirm the Payload CMS login view loads successfully.
3. Inspect the application pod logs using kubectl logs deployment/payload-cms -n production to verify successful database migrations.
4. Run kubectl get pods -n production to check that the startup, readiness, and liveness HTTP probes return status code 200.

Use Cases

• Custom Image Hosting: Running custom-built, optimized Payload CMS binaries directly fetched from your public or private Docker Hub registry.
• Headless CMS Deployments: Hosting a centralized content API detached from varying frontend client applications.
• Isolated Content Microservices: Separating administrative editorial tools from client-facing application systems.
• Stateless Next.js Scaling: Scaling CMS instance containers independently while anchoring transactional state to persistent database sets.

Summary

This template configures a secure, multi-stage Payload CMS deployment using a custom container image tied to a local PostgreSQL data layer with automated network probes.