Dokku vs Railway
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Dokku and Railway.
Quick Verdict
4.7/5
Dokku
251 reviews
4.9/5
Railway
506 reviews
Railway is rated higher (4.9 vs 4.7). Dokku is an open source PaaS you deploy on any VPS. Heroku-compatible buildpacks, Git push deployments, Let's Encrypt SSL, and Docker support. Run your own Heroku on a $5 Hetzner server. Developer platform for deploying any app with databases in seconds — deploys from GitHub with no config. Usage-based pricing means you only pay for what you run.
Dokku Self-hosted mini Heroku on your own VPS | Railway Deploy in seconds, scale in minutes | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.7 (251 reviews) | 4.9 (506 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | free | freemium |
| Starting price | Free | Free tier available |
| Best for | Developers who want Heroku-style deployments at VPS pricing on infrastructure they own and control | Developers who want a project running in production within 60 seconds with no config files |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 0 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 0.5 GB |
| Storage | — | 0 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 0 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | — | 2 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €0.00 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | United States |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostable | free tiermanaged optionus datacenterapi access |
| Visit Dokku → | Visit Railway → | |
Dokku
Pros
- + Free and open source — just need a VPS
- + Heroku buildpack compatible
- + Full control over your data and costs
Cons
- - Self-managed — you handle updates and maintenance
- - Requires Linux server knowledge
Railway
Pros
- + Fastest time-to-deploy of any platform
- + Usage-based pricing — pay only for what runs
- + PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB all one-click
Cons
- - Less suitable for large-scale production workloads
- - Pricing can surprise at higher usage levels
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