Fly.io vs Railway
Railway is the fastest way to get a repo running in the cloud — connect GitHub, push, and it auto-detects your stack with no Dockerfile. Fly gives you far more control and reach. Here's when each one is the right call.
The short version
If you're leaving Fly because you want the least possible config and the fastest deploys — a solo project, a side app, an MVP — Railway is the move: no Dockerfile, no build commands, add a database with one click. If you're leaving because you need more control or more regions, Railway won't fix that; it's deliberately higher-level than Fly, and its outage history makes it a riskier host for user-facing production.
How they compare
| Fly.io | Railway | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Micro-VMs, machine-level control | Managed, runtime auto-detected |
| Setup | flyctl + fly.toml | Push repo — no Dockerfile needed |
| Pricing | Usage-based, per second | Usage-based ($5 credit/mo on Hobby) |
| Free tier | Trial only (2h / 7 days) | $5 resource credit/mo |
| Global regions | 30+ (widest) | US / EU / Asia (fewer) |
| Managed Postgres | Fly MPG (since 2025) | One-click |
| Reliability | Frequent incidents | Notable outage record |
| Best for | Global edge, control | Solo devs, MVPs, side projects |
When Railway wins
- You want the fastest repo-to-running-app path — Railpack detects your runtime, so there's nothing to configure.
- You're a solo developer or building a side project where developer experience matters more than region count.
- You want one-click databases and services wired together without touching infrastructure.
- Your usage is small — the $5/mo Hobby credit can cover a light app for free.
When to stay on Fly.io
- You need multi-region, low-latency deployment — Railway's reach is narrower.
- You want machine-level control over how and where containers run.
- You're running user-facing production where Railway's outage history is a real concern — or move to Render/DigitalOcean for a managed option with a clearer uptime story.
Migration effort
Low to moderate. Railway can often build straight from your repo with no Dockerfile, so the app side is quick; add a Postgres plugin and import your data, then re-map environment variables and re-point DNS. The database import and secret re-mapping are the bulk of the work. If you'd rather keep an explicit, reproducible build+deploy step regardless of host, run it in CI — Buddy builds from your repo and deploys to Railway, Render, your own servers or its own Dev Cloud.