Railway review

Railway ranks second because it makes deploying a service and its database as quick as any platform here while billing only for what runs. Memory costs $0.00000386 per GB per second and CPU $0.00000772 per vCPU per second, so an idle side project costs little. The Hobby plan is a $5 monthly minimum that includes $5 of usage, and Pro is a $20 minimum with $20 of usage and unlimited seats. Services deploy from GitHub, a Docker image or a local folder through the CLI, and any open-source database can run beside them with built-in backups. Preview environments, cron jobs, one-click rollbacks, healthchecks and config as code are standard. The limits: after the 30-day trial the free plan drops to one project, 0.5 GB of RAM per service and no global regions, and usage billing needs spend limits to stay predictable. For developers who prefer paying by the second to picking box sizes, it is the strongest option.

Who it is for

Developers who want to pay by the second for what an app uses and deploy databases next to their services in a few clicks.

Price

30-day trial with $5 of credits; Hobby $5 minimum usage per month with $5 included; Pro $20 minimum usage.

Hobby $ 5 minimum usage For hobbyist developers building side projects
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 7, 2026.

Key features

• Per-second billing for memory, CPU and volumes
• Deploys from GitHub repos, Docker images or a local repo through the CLI
• Deploy any open-source database with built-in database and volume backups
• Preview environments, one-click rollbacks and config as code in TOML or JSON
• Hobby services scale to 48 vCPU and 48 GB RAM; Pro to 1,000 vCPU and 1 TB RAM

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: You pay only for resources used, not for a fixed instance size
• Strength: Hobby plan includes $5 of usage, which covers many small bots and APIs
• Strength: Pro includes unlimited workspace seats
• Weakness: The free plan after the trial is limited to 1 project and 0.5 GB RAM per service
• Weakness: Usage billing makes monthly costs harder to predict than flat instances
• Weakness: Global regions are unavailable on the free plan

Key facts

• Hobby: $5 minimum usage, $5 credits included
• Pro: $20 minimum usage, $20 credits included
• CPU: $0.00000772 per vCPU per second
• Egress: $0.05 per GB

Where it ranks

Railway is No. 2 in our Best App Hosting Platforms verdict and No. 3 in Best Discord Bot Hosting.