Railway vs Koyeb
A side-by-side, data-driven comparison of Railway and Koyeb — pricing, free tiers and capabilities.
Both are usage-billed container hosts: Railway optimizes for the fastest deploy with a canvas UI and per-second billing, while Koyeb focuses on serverless global-edge deployment with scale-to-zero — Railway is friendlier to start, Koyeb better for edge locations and automatic scale-down (note its free tier is closed to new signups since 2026).
At a glance
- At a medium always-on instance, Railway is ~$40.52/mo vs Koyeb ~$10.71/mo — Koyeb is the cheaper estimate.
Specs side by side
Estimated cost
Estimated monthly cost of a single always-on service — estimates, not quotes. Try the calculator for your own traffic. “—” means no verified price for that tier.
| Railway | Koyeb | |
|---|---|---|
| Small (~0.5 vCPU / 512MB–1GB) | $20.26 | $5.36 (lower) |
| Medium (~1 vCPU / 2GB) | $40.52 | $10.71 (lower) |
| Large (~2 vCPU / 4GB) | $81.03 | $21.43 (lower) |
| Egress ($/GB) | $0.05 | $0.02 (lower) |
Pros & cons
Our editorial assessment — not vendor-stated facts. Last reviewed 2026-07-16.
Railway
Pros
- Fast, low-configuration deploys that avoid Kubernetes and infrastructure-as-code for common workloads
- App, databases, networking, and environment config managed in a single UI
- Usage-based billing charges for resources actually consumed rather than fixed instance sizes
- Built-in preview environments and collaboration features suit small teams
Cons
- Consumption-based pricing can be hard to predict and may spike under bursty or unexpected traffic
- No built-in CDN or edge network, so globally distributed or latency-sensitive static delivery needs a separate CDN layer
- Access controls are relatively coarse, which can limit larger orgs needing granular per-service or per-environment permissions
- Publicized outages and degraded-performance incidents through 2025-2026 (Railway publishes post-incident reports) — check its current status before committing
Koyeb
Pros
- Simple Git-to-deploy and container workflow that abstracts away most infrastructure management
- Runs workloads on bare-metal-backed microVMs with global geographic distribution
- Scale-to-zero plus per-second billing, so idle services cost little
- Expanding GPU and AI-inference capabilities that go beyond a typical PaaS
Cons
- The Mistral AI acquisition is steering Koyeb toward AI infrastructure (positioned as part of Mistral Compute), creating uncertainty about its long-term commitment to general-purpose web hosting
- Following the acquisition, the free (Starter) tier is closed to new sign-ups: new accounts must start on a paid plan, and a credit card is required to register
- Smaller ecosystem, integration catalog, and community than the major clouds or larger PaaS competitors
- Managed data services center on Postgres, with no broad catalog of managed databases, queues, or caches
Bottom line
Pick Railway for indie devs who want fast, pay-for-what-you-use deploys. Pick Koyeb for serverless-style container apps deployed to the global edge.
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Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between Railway and Koyeb?
- Railway: Deploy apps, databases and services from a canvas UI or CLI with usage-based pricing; popular with indie devs for its developer experience. Koyeb: A serverless platform to deploy apps and Docker containers globally with autoscaling.
- Is Railway or Koyeb cheaper?
- For a medium always-on instance, Railway is about $40.52/mo and Koyeb about $10.71/mo, so Koyeb is the cheaper estimate. Actual cost depends on your usage — try the calculator.
- Does Railway have a free tier?
- No.
- Does Koyeb have a free tier?
- No.
More Railway alternatives · More Koyeb alternatives · Compare all platforms