Railway vs Render
Post-Heroku world. Two platforms want to be your deploy-and-forget backend. Which one earns that trust?
Railway
Railway's DX is chef's kiss. The dashboard is cleaner, the CLI is snappier, and the pricing is more predictable. Render is solid too, but Railway just feels better to use day-to-day.
Heroku's Children
Heroku killed their free tier and jacked up prices. Everyone scrambled for alternatives. Railway and Render emerged as the two most developer-friendly options.
Both let you deploy apps from Git with zero config. Both handle databases, environment variables, and scaling. The differences are in the details.
Quick Comparison
| Factor | Railway | Render |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard UX | Beautiful, fast | Functional, clean |
| Free Tier | $5 credit/month | 750 hours free |
| Sleep on Idle | Never (paid) | Free tier sleeps |
| Postgres | Built-in, cheap | Built-in, cheap |
| Redis | Native support | Native support |
| CLI Experience | Excellent | Good |
| Private Networking | Yes, easy | Yes |
| Static Sites | Not focus | Free, unlimited |
Why Railway Wins
Railway's dashboard is a joy to use. Real-time logs, instant deploys, a beautiful project overview. It sounds shallow, but when you're debugging at 2am, UX matters.
The pricing model is simpler too: pay for what you use. No confusing tier breakdowns. Connect your credit card, get $5 free credit monthly, pay for overages.
"Railway's `railway up` command just works. Push your code, get a URL. No yaml files, no Dockerfiles (unless you want them), no BS."
Why Render Has Fans
Render's free tier is genuinely free. 750 hours per month, enough for a side project. The catch: services sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity.
- Free static sites: Unlimited static hosting, forever free. Great for landing pages.
- Background workers: Better support for background jobs and cron.
- Managed databases: Free Postgres for 90 days, then cheap paid tiers.
- Blueprint specs: Infrastructure-as-code via render.yaml.
The Cold Start Problem
Render's free tier sleeps. When a request comes in, your service wakes up. This can take 30+ seconds. For APIs, that's brutal.
Railway's hobby tier ($5/month) doesn't sleep. Your service stays warm. For anything production-ish, this matters a lot.
Render offers always-on for paid tiers too, but Railway's sleep-free default is a better developer experience.
Database Comparison
Both offer managed Postgres. Both are cheaper than AWS RDS. Railway feels slightly more integrated - your database just appears in your project dashboard alongside your services.
Render's database pricing is competitive, but their 90-day free tier expiration has caught people off guard. Railway's usage-based model is more predictable.
The Verdict
Use Railway if: You want the best developer experience, hate cold starts, and don't mind paying $5/month for a hobby project.
Use Render if: You want truly free hosting for side projects, need static site hosting, or prefer infrastructure-as-code with render.yaml.
Use neither if: You need advanced features like auto-scaling, multi-region, or enterprise compliance. Look at Fly.io or just use AWS/GCP.
Railway is the Heroku successor we deserved. Clean, fast, no surprises. The $5/month minimum is worth it for the experience.