Cloud · head to head
Coolify vs Railway
Coolify
Cloud
Open source self-hosted platform that deploys applications and databases to servers you already own
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Coolify commit history since June 2026 shows one maintainer at 73 commits and a second at 15 with nobody else above one, and the same two people also ship four other coolLabs products, so the project depends on a very small number of individuals.; Railway plan fees are usage credits rather than allowances, so the $5 Hobby and $20 Pro fees are spent on compute and anything beyond is billed on top
- They diverge on capability: Coolify covers Git push deployments, Railway covers Git integration.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Coolify and Railway actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cloud).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Coolify
- Git push deployments
- One-click services
- Automatic certificates
- Managed databases
- Docker Compose support
- Notifications
Only in Railway
- Git integration
- Zero-config deployment
- PostgreSQL
- MySQL
- Redis
- Environment variables
- Custom domains
- Monitoring
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Coolify
- Replacing a managed platform bill with a single Hetzner or DigitalOcean instance running a dozen small applicationsnot Railway
- An agency hosting many low-traffic client sites on shared servers with certificates handled automaticallynot Railway
- Self-hosting analytics, databases and internal tools from the one-click catalogue without writing Compose filesnot Railway
- Deploying inside a country or jurisdiction where no managed platform operates a regionnot Railway
Railway
- Deploying applications and databases without managing serversnot Coolify
- Running preview environments and services straight from a repositorynot Coolify
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Coolify
- Commit history since June 2026 shows one maintainer at 73 commits and a second at 15 with nobody else above one, and the same two people also ship four other coolLabs products, so the project depends on a very small number of individuals.
- Multi-server support is documented as experimental, load balancer configuration is manual, every server must share the same CPU architecture, and moving images between hosts requires you to run your own Docker registry.
- In self-hosted mode the Coolify machine holds every SSH key and secret with no documented high availability, so the dashboard host is a single point of failure that the paid Cloud tier fixes and self-hosting does not.
- Scheduled S3 backups cover PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB and MongoDB only, so application persistent volumes are your responsibility and a restore is untested unless you test it yourself.
- Release cadence is fast enough that six patch versions shipped inside ten days in August 2026 against several hundred open issues, and because instances can update themselves a regression can reach a production host before you have read the changelog.
Railway
- Plan fees are usage credits rather than allowances, so the $5 Hobby and $20 Pro fees are spent on compute and anything beyond is billed on top
- The free plan carries $1 of monthly credit and caps a service at 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB
- Compute is metered per second for both memory and CPU, so cost tracks uptime rather than traffic and an idle service still bills
- Egress is $0.05 per GB on top of compute
- The Pro fee is per workspace rather than per user or per project
Pricing, plan by plan
Coolify
Free- Self-hostedFree
- Apache-2.0, no features held back
- Unlimited servers, applications and users
- You run, update and back up the dashboard yourself
- Cloud$5/month
- Connects 2 servers, then 3 US dollars a month per extra server
- Managed and updated Coolify dashboard with high availability
- Managed backups of the Coolify instance itself
Railway
Free- FreeFree
- $5 credit/month
- Community support
- Unlimited projects
- Pro$20/month
- Private repos
- Priority support
- Advanced monitoring
Which should you pick?
Choose Coolify if
- You need git push deployments.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Linux, Docker, Self-hosted.
- You also want one-click services.
Choose Railway if
- You need git integration.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Api, Docker.
- You also want zero-config deployment.
Questions people ask
- Is Coolify or Railway better?
- Neither clearly leads. Coolify starts at Free and Railway at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Coolify or Railway?
- Coolify starts at Free and Railway at Free.
- Does Coolify or Railway run on more platforms?
- Coolify runs on Web, Linux, Docker, Self-hosted. Railway runs on Web, Api, Docker.
- Can I use Coolify for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Coolify best used for?
- Coolify is most often used for replacing a managed platform bill with a single hetzner or digitalocean instance running a dozen small applications, an agency hosting many low-traffic client sites on shared servers with certificates handled automatically, self-hosting analytics, databases and internal tools from the one-click catalogue without writing compose files, deploying inside a country or jurisdiction where no managed platform operates a region. Of those, replacing a managed platform bill with a single hetzner or digitalocean instance running a dozen small applications and an agency hosting many low-traffic client sites on shared servers with certificates handled automatically are not what Railway is typically brought in for.
- What can Coolify do that Railway cannot?
- Coolify covers Git push deployments, One-click services, Automatic certificates, Managed databases. Railway covers Git integration, Zero-config deployment, PostgreSQL, MySQL.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Coolify: Is anything held back for the paid tier?
No. Coolify Cloud hosts, updates and backs up the dashboard and gives it high availability. Every feature that touches your applications is in the Apache-2.0 build you can run yourself.
Railway: How much does Railway cost?
Railway's Hobby plan is $5 per month and includes $5 of monthly usage credit. Pro is $20 per month per workspace with $20 of credit included. Enterprise is quoted. Usage beyond the included credit is billed per second.
SourceCoolify: What does Coolify Cloud cost?
Five US dollars a month connects two servers, and each additional server is three dollars a month, with 20 per cent off for annual billing. You still supply and pay for the servers themselves.
Railway: Does Railway have a free tier?
Yes, two. A one-time Free Trial gives $5 of credit valid for 30 days, and an ongoing Free plan includes $1 per month with 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB per service, 1 replica and 3 days of log history.
SourceCoolify: Does it back up my application data?
It backs up PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB and MongoDB to S3 on a schedule. Application persistent volumes are not covered, so anything stored outside a managed database needs your own backup plan.
Railway: What are Railway's resource limits per plan?
The Free plan allows 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB per service with 1 replica. Hobby raises that to 48 vCPU and 48 GB with 6 replicas. Pro allows 1,000 vCPU and 1 TB per service with 42 replicas and 30 days of log history.
SourceCoolify: Can I run it across several servers?
Yes, but the documentation calls multi-server experimental. Load balancing is not configured for you, all nodes must share a CPU architecture, and you need to run your own Docker registry.
Railway: How does Railway bill usage above the included credit?
Railway charges memory at $0.00000386 per GB per second and CPU at $0.00000772 per vCPU per second, with storage volumes at $0.00000006 per GB per second, plus separate egress and object storage fees.
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