Hosting & Deployment · decision tool
Railway vs Render vs Fly — where should your backend live?
Usage-billed (Railway), fixed instances (Render) or machines (Fly)? Long-running server is ON here — set your RAM and traffic and see the real bills.
Prices verified 2026-07-15 against official pricing pages · fit weights are our estimates (see methodology) · share the URL to share your configuration
As of Jul 2026, with 50GB bandwidth/month, 2 millions requests / month, 1 GB server ram needed, a $30 budget for this slot, Render ranks first for these inputs at 83% fit and a StackSays-estimated $25.00/month (Fly.io: 80% fit, $9.08/month). Fit weights are our estimates; prices trace to official pages. Change any input below and the verdict recomputes.
Your situation
The verdict updates as you move these.
Narrow pick — the runner-up is close
Heroku's spiritual successor — fixed instance sizes, predictable bills
vs Fly.io: fit 83% against 80%, est $25.00 against $9.08 per month
Comparing 3 tools head-to-head. Open the full field (7 options) →
The decision, in plain words
For a solo builder at 50GB bandwidth/month and a $30.00/mo budget for the hosting platform slot, Render leads at 83% fit and $25.00/mo. The two rules doing the work: budget fit (~$25/mo is 83% of your $30/mo budget); batteries included (Bundles preview deploys, zero-ops (managed) — fewer services to glue at team size 1).
Fly.io runs close (80% fit, $9.08/mo). It takes the lead if ~$9.08/mo is 30% of your $30/mo budget matters more to you than the current weights assume.
Generated from the calculation above — every number traces to the sourced data; nothing here is written by an AI making things up.
Why Render scores 83%
How the $25.00/mo estimate is calculated
What could change this verdict
Cost risk
Official prices verified 2026-07-15; calculation is deterministic code over those prices.
At a glance
| Tool | Free tier | Paid entry | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Railway | No free tier | Hobby $5/mo | 2026-07-15 |
| Render | 512MB / 0.1 CPU, 100GB bandwidth | Starter $7/mo | 2026-07-15 |
| Fly.io | No free tier | Pay-as-you-go — shared-cpu-1x 256MB ≈ $2.02/mo → ~$8.08/GB-mo RAM equivalent (machine sizes are granular); NA egress $0.02/GB. Free allowances ended for new accounts Oct 2024 | 2026-07-15 |
Data sources
| Tool | Source | Verified |
|---|---|---|
| Railway | Railway pricing docs | 2026-07-15 |
| Render | Render pricing (via 2026 third-party verification; official page JS-blocked to our monitor) | 2026-07-15 |
| Fly.io | Fly.io pricing docs | 2026-07-15 |
A monitor re-checks these pages for changes; when a vendor moves a price, the date updates and every verdict recomputes.
People also ask
Is Render free?
There's a free tier (512MB / 0.1 CPU, 100GB bandwidth) but services spin down after 15 minutes idle and take about a minute to wake — fine for demos, unusable for real traffic. Always-on starts at $7/month (Starter, 512MB).