Software · head to head
Render vs Fly.io
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Render the free Hobby workspace is limited to 25 services and 5 GB of bandwidth; 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
- They diverge on capability: Render covers Web services, Fly.io covers Global deployment.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Render and Fly.io actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (usage-based), free tier (Yes), 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 Render
- Web services
- Static sites
- Background workers
- Postgres database
- Redis database
- Scheduled jobs
- Environment variables
- Custom domains
Only in Fly.io
- Global deployment
- Docker support
- Postgres databases
- Redis support
- Auto-scaling
- Health checks
- Backups
- Monitoring
Both cover
- GitHub
- Docker
- HTTPS
- Automatic SSL
- Cloud deployment
- Web support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Render
- Deploying web services, static sites and cron jobs from a Git repository without managing serversnot Fly.io
- Running managed Postgres and Redis alongside application servicesnot Fly.io
- Preview environments per pull request for small teamsnot Fly.io
Fly.io
- Deploying containerised applications close to users across regionsnot Render
- Running full stack apps and databases on managed machinesnot Render
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Render
- The free Hobby workspace is limited to 25 services and 5 GB of bandwidth
- Every paid plan charges the workspace fee plus compute on top, so $25 per month for Pro is a floor rather than a total
- SAML SSO and SCIM require the Scale plan at $499 per month
- HIPAA-compliant workspaces, inbound IP rules and advanced RBAC roles are Scale plan features
- Organization-level audit logs require Scale; Pro provides only workspace audit logs
- Contractual uptime SLAs, support response SLAs and a technical account manager are Enterprise only, and Enterprise is custom priced with no published rate
- Included bandwidth is 25 GB on Pro and 1 TB on Scale, with usage beyond that billed separately
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
Pricing, plan by plan
Render
Free- FreeFree
- 1 web service
- 1 static site
- Shared CPU
- Starter$7/month
- Unlimited services
- Dedicated CPU
- 2GB RAM
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
Which should you pick?
Choose Render if
- You need web services.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Api.
- You also want static sites.
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.
Questions people ask
- Is Render or Fly.io better?
- Neither clearly leads. Render starts at Free and Fly.io at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Render or Fly.io?
- Render starts at Free and Fly.io at Free.
- Does Render or Fly.io run on more platforms?
- Render runs on Web, Api. Fly.io runs on Web, Api, Docker.
- Can I use Render for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Render best used for?
- Render is most often used for deploying web services, static sites and cron jobs from a git repository without managing servers, running managed postgres and redis alongside application services, preview environments per pull request for small teams. Of those, deploying web services, static sites and cron jobs from a git repository without managing servers and running managed postgres and redis alongside application services are not what Fly.io is typically brought in for.
- What can Render do that Fly.io cannot?
- Render covers Web services, Static sites, Background workers, Postgres database. Fly.io covers Global deployment, Docker support, Postgres databases, Redis support. Both handle GitHub, Docker, HTTPS, Automatic SSL.