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Fly.io vs Railway
Railway provides easy app deployment with built-in databases, not edge-focused VMs for agents.
Which to pick
Pick Fly.io if you want…
- Hardware-isolated edge VMs for agents
- Edge-focused deployments
- Integrations with OpenRouter, Slack or any HTTP API (on Fly.io's list, not Railway's)
Pick Railway if you want…
- All-in-one cloud deployment and scaling
- Simple app pipelines
- Integrations with Docker or Railway CLI (on Railway's list, not Fly.io's)
Fly.io emphasizes running full-stack apps close to users with edge locations.
Side by side
- What it is
- Fly.io:Fly.io provides hardware-isolated Linux VMs (Sprites and Machines) that run close to users for AI agents and full-stack apps.
- Railway:Railway is a full-stack cloud platform that lets developers deploy apps, databases and services with automatic scaling, monitoring and networking.
- Best for
- Fly.io:Hardware-isolated edge VMs for agents
- Railway:All-in-one cloud deployment and scaling
- Who it’s for
- Fly.io:Developers building AI agents, personal assistants, or apps that need low-latency edge compute.
- Railway:Developers and teams who want to ship web apps and services without managing infrastructure.
- Pricing
- Fly.io:Freemium
- Railway:Freemium
- Plans
- Fly.io:Machines shared-cpu-1x $0.0027 per hour · Machines performance-2x $0.0861 per hour · Sprites compute $0.07 / CPU-hour · Support Standard $29 per month · Support Premium $199 per month
- Railway:Free Free · Hobby Free
- Works with
- Fly.io:OpenRouter, GitHub, Slack, any HTTP API
- Railway:GitHub, Docker, Railway CLI
Fly.io features
- Sprites. Sleep-aware VMs that checkpoint filesystem and services, allowing instant wake-up and rollback.
- Machines. Fast-booting, hardware-isolated VMs that scale to tens of thousands of users.
- Block Device Storage. Object-storage backed block device with automatic checkpointing and unlimited scaling.
- Connectors. Configure a credential once and share it across all Sprites with granular permissions and auto-rotation.
- Zero-Management Disk. Disk grows automatically up to 100 GB per Sprite, billed only for used bytes.
- Global Edge Network. Deploy in 18+ regions with <1 s boot time and 99.9 % SLA.
Railway features
- One-click Deploy. Connect a repo and Railway auto-configures, builds and deploys the app instantly.
- Visual Project Canvas. See and edit the entire stack, networking and resources on a visual canvas.
- Instant Networking. Private connections, public endpoints, SSL and load balancing are provisioned automatically.
- Auto Scaling & Replicas. Scale CPU, RAM or add replicas with load balancing, globally.
- Built-in Observability. Logs, metrics, traces and alerts are available in a single dashboard.
- Preview Environments. Every pull request gets an isolated preview environment with one-click rollbacks.
Fly.io vs Railway FAQ
Is Fly.io or Railway free?+
Fly.io has a free plan; paid plans start at $29/month (Support Standard). Railway has a free plan and paid plans.
Do Fly.io and Railway integrate with the same tools?+
Partly. Both list GitHub. Fly.io also lists OpenRouter, Slack and any HTTP API; Railway also lists Docker and Railway CLI.
On DevHunt
Based on each tool's website and DevHunt data. Details may change; check the official sites.