Software · head to head
Fly.io vs Railway
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Fly.io egress is priced by destination region, from $0.02 per GB in North America and Europe to $0.12 per GB for Africa and India, so the same traffic costs six times more depending on where users are; 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: Fly.io covers Global deployment, Railway covers Git integration.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Fly.io and Railway actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (usage-based), free tier (Yes), platforms (Web, Api, Docker), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Unknown).
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 Fly.io
- Global deployment
- Docker support
- Postgres databases
- Redis support
- Auto-scaling
- Health checks
- Backups
- Git
Only in Railway
- Git integration
- Zero-config deployment
- MySQL
- Environment variables
- Custom domains
- GitLab
- Bitbucket
- Node.js
Both cover
- Monitoring
- Docker
- GitHub
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- HTTPS
- Cloud deployment
- Web support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Fly.io
- Deploying containerised applications close to users across regionsnot Railway
- Running full stack apps and databases on managed machinesnot Railway
Railway
- Deploying applications and databases without managing serversnot Fly.io
- Running preview environments and services straight from a repositorynot Fly.io
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Fly.io
- Egress is priced by destination region, from $0.02 per GB in North America and Europe to $0.12 per GB for Africa and India, so the same traffic costs six times more depending on where users are
- Stopped machines still bill at $0.15 per GB of root filesystem a month, so a paused service is not a free one
- Volumes are billed on provisioned capacity rather than usage, at $0.15 per GB a month
- Reservation discounts of 40% require paying a year up front, from $36 to $1,440
- Fly Kubernetes is a separate $75 a month per cluster
- Dedicated IPv4 addresses are $2 a month each
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
Fly.io
Free- FreeFree
- 3 shared-cpu-1x VMs
- 3GB persistence storage
- 160GB outbound data/month
- Pay-as-you-goFree
- Unlimited applications
- Dedicated machines
- Global deployment
Railway
Free- FreeFree
- $5 credit/month
- Community support
- Unlimited projects
- Pro$20/month
- Private repos
- Priority support
- Advanced monitoring
Which should you pick?
Choose Fly.io if
- You need global deployment.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Api, Docker.
- You also want docker support.
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 Fly.io or Railway better?
- Neither clearly leads. Fly.io 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, Fly.io or Railway?
- Fly.io starts at Free and Railway at Free.
- Does Fly.io or Railway run on more platforms?
- Both run on Web, Api, Docker, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
- Can I use Fly.io for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Fly.io best used for?
- Fly.io is most often used for deploying containerised applications close to users across regions, running full stack apps and databases on managed machines. Of those, deploying containerised applications close to users across regions and running full stack apps and databases on managed machines are not what Railway is typically brought in for.
- What can Fly.io do that Railway cannot?
- Fly.io covers Global deployment, Docker support, Postgres databases, Redis support. Railway covers Git integration, Zero-config deployment, MySQL, Environment variables. Both handle Monitoring, Docker, GitHub, PostgreSQL.