Railway vs Coolify
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Railway and Coolify.
Quick Verdict
3.9/5
Railway
0 reviews
4.2/5
Coolify
0 reviews
Coolify is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.9). 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. Coolify is a free, open source self-hosted platform for deploying apps, databases, and services on your own servers. Supports any Docker image, one-click databases, and automated SSL.
Railway Deploy in seconds, scale in minutes | Coolify Self-hosted open source Heroku/Netlify alternative | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.9 (0 reviews) | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | Developers and small teams shipping side projects, internal tools and variable-load applications who value deploy speed and managed databases over raw compute pricing. | Solo developers and small teams with Linux skills who want Heroku-style deploys on their own cheap servers without per-app PaaS pricing |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 1 vCPU | — |
| RAM | 1 GB | — |
| Storage | 1 GB | — |
| Bandwidth | 0 TB/mo | — |
| SLA uptime | 99.9% | — |
| Data-center count | 4 | — |
| €/vCPU/mo | €0.00 | — |
| €/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 | California, USAVirginia, USAAmsterdam, NetherlandsSingapore | Bring your own servers; Cloud control plane on Hetzner in Falkenstein, Germany |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tiermanaged optionus datacenterapi access | free tieropen sourceself hostable |
| Visit Railway → | Visit Coolify → | |
Railway
Pros
- + Second-level usage billing with a documented rate card — idle services cost almost nothing
- + Genuinely useful free tier ($0/month, $1 monthly credit) with no credit card required
- + One-click Postgres/MySQL/Redis/Mongo and S3-compatible Buckets at $0.015 per GB-month
- + Four regions including Amsterdam and Singapore, with same-experience deploys everywhere
- + Excellent docs, config-as-code and CLI — the DX is the product
Cons
- - Expensive per unit of steady compute versus a VPS — hot workloads pay a large premium
- - Metered bills can surprise; forecasting requires knowing your average vCPU/RAM draw
- - No root access, no GPU compute, no published DDoS or IPv6 position
- - Availability figures are targets (99.9% Hobby, 99.99% Pro), with real SLAs only at Enterprise
- - Free tier limits (1 vCPU / 0.5 GB RAM, 0.5 GB storage) are evaluation-grade only
Coolify
Pros
- + Self-hosted is free forever with the complete feature set — unlimited servers, deployments and team members, Apache 2.0, no feature paywall
- + Coolify Cloud is $5/month including 2 connected servers ($3/month per extra server) — a flat fee that takes no margin on your compute
- + Deploys apps, databases and 280+ one-click services with automatic Let's Encrypt TLS and git push workflows on any SSH-reachable Linux host
- + Open codebase with a large, active community (20k+ Discord members) and near-daily development
Cons
- - You own server security, patching, firewalling and workload backups — the platform only removes deployment tedium
- - No uptime SLA, no enterprise support tier, SSO or compliance package; support is community plus limited email on Cloud
- - Fast-moving project: frequent releases and occasional upgrade friction, with a busy issue tracker
- - Cloud base plan covers only 2 servers and each team needs its own subscription
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