Railway vs Render vs Fly.io
Compare PaaS hosting costs for web services, APIs, and background workers. Find the cheapest option for your workload.
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Feature Comparison
| Feature | Railway | Render | Fly.io |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | $1 credit/mo (+ $5 one-time trial) | 750h/mo, 5GB bandwidth | โ ๏ธ None for new orgs (2026) โ legacy accounts only |
| Sleep on inactivity | โ Optional | โ ๏ธ On free tier | โ Optional |
| Postgres | โ Built-in | โ Built-in | โ Fly Postgres |
| Redis | โ Built-in | โ Built-in | Via Upstash |
| Custom domains | โ | โ | โ |
| Docker support | โ | โ | โ (native) |
| Multi-region | Limited | Limited | โ Best-in-class |
| Deploy from Git | โ | โ | CLI-first |
| Cron jobs | โ | โ | โ |
| Best for | Quick deploys | Simple apps | Global latency |
When to Choose Each
| Use Case | Best Choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Side project / hobby | Render | Only one of the three with a real ongoing free tier for new accounts |
| Next.js / monorepo | Railway | Best DX, monorepo support |
| Global low-latency API | Fly.io | 30+ regions, anycast |
| Simple web service | Render | Easiest to set up |
| Many microservices | Railway | Per-service billing is predictable |
| Elixir / Phoenix | Fly.io | Official Fly phoenix generators |
Why these three price so differently
Railway and Fly.io both meter usage down to the second -- Railway charges roughly $0.0000077 per vCPU-second and $0.0000039 per GB-second of RAM (about $20/mo and $10/mo per unit running continuously, with a $5/mo Hobby-plan floor), while Fly.io charges about $0.00000068 per vCPU-second in its cheapest regions and $0.0000023 per GB-second of RAM -- noticeably cheaper per second on paper. That granularity rewards apps that scale to zero or sit mostly idle, since you only pay for the seconds actually used. Render takes the opposite approach: a flat $7/mo per service (Starter plan) regardless of how little CPU or RAM that service actually consumes, which trades fine-grained savings for a predictable bill you can budget around in advance.
Bandwidth pricing diverged sharply after Render's April 2026 repricing: Render's free allowance was cut 20x, from 100GB/mo down to just 5GB/mo, with overage now a granular $0.15/GB. Railway kept its 100GB free allowance and charges $0.05/GB beyond that. Fly.io's egress rate is the cheapest of the three at $0.02/GB in North America and Europe (more in other regions) -- but its famous "generous free tier" no longer applies to new organizations created in 2026, which get no ongoing free bandwidth at all, only a short trial. If you're starting a brand-new project rather than running a legacy account, Render is the only one of the three with a real free tier today. Run your own CPU, RAM, bandwidth, and service-count numbers through the calculator above rather than assuming one provider's old reputation still holds.
Read the full breakdown: three real hosting bills compared โ
Frequently asked questions
Which of Railway, Render, or Fly.io is cheapest for a small side project?
Render, for a brand-new account. Its 750 free instance-hours a month covers one always-on service with 5GB of free bandwidth included. Fly.io no longer gives new organizations any ongoing free allowance as of 2026 -- only a short trial -- so a side project started today has no free tier there despite Fly's old reputation for one. Railway's free tier is a one-time $5 trial credit with no ongoing free quota, so a side project on Railway starts costing money once that credit runs out, even at near-zero usage.
Why is Render's pricing flat while Railway and Fly.io charge per second?
Render's Starter plan is a fixed $7/mo per service regardless of exact usage within the plan's limits, trading precision for predictability. Railway and Fly.io both meter down to the second, so a service that mostly sits idle or scales to zero can end up cheaper than Render's flat fee, while a service running hot 24/7 can end up more expensive than a comparable Render plan.
How does bandwidth pricing differ between the three?
Railway keeps a 100GB free allowance, then charges $0.05/GB after that. Render cut its free allowance 20x in an April 2026 repricing, from 100GB down to just 5GB/mo, with overage now $0.15/GB. Fly.io has the cheapest per-GB overage rate of the three at $0.02/GB in North America and Europe -- but as of 2026, new organizations get no ongoing free bandwidth at all, only a short trial, so that low rate applies from the very first gigabyte for anyone starting fresh today.
Which platform is best for a global, multi-region deployment?
Fly.io, by a clear margin. It was built around deploying the same app to 30+ regions with anycast routing so requests hit the nearest edge automatically. Railway and Render both support multi-region in a more limited way, generally requiring you to run and manage separate service instances per region yourself.