Porter vs Shuttle
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Porter and Shuttle.
Quick Verdict
4.0/5
Porter
0 reviews
3.4/5
Shuttle
0 reviews
Porter is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.4). Provision a Kubernetes cluster in your own AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud account and get Heroku-like deployments with PR preview environments, autoscaling, and GitHub-based CI/CD. Shuttle deploys Rust backend services with zero configuration — annotate your code with macros and Shuttle handles the infrastructure. No YAML, no Terraform. Pay-per-use serverless Rust.
Porter Kubernetes deployments for teams without DevOps | Shuttle Deploy Rust backends from your code — no config | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.4 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | usage-based | freemium |
| Starting price | From $1.9/mo | Free tier available✓ |
| Best for | Growing engineering teams, including AI startups, who need Kubernetes scalability and GPU workloads in their own cloud account without dedicated DevOps staff | Rust developers — solo or small teams — who want a backend live in minutes from annotated code and can accept a London-only region and no contractual uptime guarantee. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 0 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 1 GB |
| Storage | — | 1 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | — | — |
| Data-center count | — | 1 |
| €/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 | — | AWS eu-west-2 (London) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tiermanaged optionteam featureskubernetes supportapi access | free tieropen sourceus datacenter |
| Visit Porter → | Visit Shuttle → | |
Porter
Pros
- + Heroku-style deploys on Kubernetes in your own cloud account — data and billing stay with AWS/Azure/GCP
- + Transparent metering ($6/GB RAM, $13/vCPU monthly, per-minute prorating) with a published pricing calculator
- + Clean exit: the cluster remains and is yours to operate if you stop paying
- + Removes real operational toil — CI/CD, preview environments, autoscaling, CVE patches, cluster upgrades
- + GPU instances and one-click SOC 2/HIPAA fit AI and compliance-sensitive startups
Cons
- - Requires a cloud account and ~30 minutes of provisioning; more setup than Render or Railway
- - Two invoices (Porter plus cloud provider); idle environments still meter
- - Deep incidents are Kubernetes-shaped to debug
- - Pivot-prone startup history and premium support gated behind the Enterprise track
Shuttle
Pros
- + Infrastructure from code annotations: databases, secrets and static assets provisioned from function signatures, no YAML or Terraform
- + Real free tier (0.25 vCPU, 0.5 GB RAM, 0.5 GB database, 100 build minutes/month) with custom domain support
- + Published, itemized usage rates ($0.12/GB storage, $0.025/build minute, $0.10/GB egress) instead of sales-quoted pricing
- + Clear isolation tiering: spot instances on free, reserved VM-isolated instances from Pro
- + First-class Rust framework support (Axum, Actix Web, Rocket, Serenity) and open-source platform code
Cons
- - Rust only — other language stacks are not supported today
- - Single AWS region (London, eu-west-2) with no region choice below the not-yet-available Enterprise tier
- - No published uptime SLA on any current tier; support is Discord-based with 1-business-day response on Pro
- - Steep jump from $20/mo Pro to $250/mo Growth, with metered usage on top of every paid tier
- - Tier contents have changed materially over time (projects and included egress were cut in 2025)
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