Heroku vs Railway
Two paaS options for hosting. When each fits, what it costs, who moves from one to the other, and what makers who chose it say.
Ask your AI about this, with this page as the source:ChatGPT ↗Claude ↗Perplexity ↗
Which fits you
Choose Heroku if- A long-established git-push platform with managed Postgres, Redis and a large add-on marketplace.
Use it whenYou want the classic Procfile workflow with add-ons for everything, or your team already knows Heroku.
Trade-offNo free tier, and since March 2026 Heroku runs as a sustaining-engineering platform focused on stability rather than new features.
Choose Railway if- You have a long-running server, a background worker and a database to deploy together
Use it whenYour app is a server plus a database and a worker, and you want them in one project.
Trade-offUsage-based billing needs watching; fewer regions and compliance options than a hyperscaler.
At a glance
| Heroku | Railway | |
|---|---|---|
| Used by | 58 makers' products · 4 open-source projects | 112 makers' products |
| Cost at default usagerequests 5 million requests, data transfer out 100 GB, serverless function compute 100 GB-hours | — | $45/mo Hobby |
| Downloads | ||
| Pricing | No free tier; paid per dyno and per add-on. · paid from $5/mo (Eco dyno) | Usage-based with a small monthly minimum. · paid from $5/mo minimum usage |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Open source | No | No |
What makers say
Makers on using it for hosting, from Product Hunt and Starter Story interviews, each linked to the source. Products with a page of their own and fuller notes first.
On Heroku…sign & Prototyping: Balsamiq Mockups & Adobe Photoshop Keyword Tracking: SEMRush Hosting: Heroku Live Chat: Tawk.to What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resource…
We started using Heroku very early in our journey and still rely on Heroku for database maintenance etc. Heroku's ease of use means we can operate with a much leaner team.
lass="mb-2"> Zoom for video calls Loom & Slack for team communication Cloudflare for Video processing, CDN, and DNS Heroku for zero config dev-ops.
On RailwayRailway makes deploying and scaling our backend effortless. Push to main, it's live. No Dockerfiles to debug, no infra to babysit. We went from zero to production in an afternoon.
🚀 Shoutout to Railway for making API deployment a breeze! As a frontend developer without much backend experience, their platform made it super easy to set up and deploy changes.
Railway is simple and handles deployment transitions really well. Old deployments drain cleanly while new ones come up, so users are never interrupted when we ship.
Loved and watch-outs
Themes that recur in makers' words and Hacker News comments, each linked to what it summarises.
HerokuOn Product Hunt: 4.9★, 14 reviews · mentioned most: easy deployment, focus on app development, scalable platformRailwayMost loved
Watch-outs
On Product Hunt: 5.0★, 103 reviews · mentioned most: fast deployment, scalable infrastructure, no deep DevOps knowledge required- Platform-wide outages, including one when Google Cloud blocked Railway's account, took customer services down. HNHN 2HN 3HN 4
- It adds a middle layer on Google Cloud that controls your availability, features and security. HNHN 2
- API tokens grant every operation without clear warnings, which let an agent instantly delete a production database. HNHN 2
Who uses each
Heroku58 makers' products
Amami
April
Aviquill
Aximote In-Car App
ClickWhat makers pair each with
With HerokuWeb Analytics
Heroku + Google Analytics:ButtondownCheckout PageClearCheckbook Money ManagementCoachComparedomain name generatorGlobal Entry AlertsHelloQueryLazy JarMaynuuMoveWellMylanceOneSEOand 11 more
Heroku + Fathom Analytics:ButtondownRailsDevs
Payments
Transactional Email
Heroku + SendGrid:ButtondownClearCheckbook Money ManagementClosing CreditsData FetcherLazy JarMylanceReputationStackerSharetribeTalknotesWatermelon
TwosUpHexand 3 more
TwosUpHexand 3 moreHeroku + Postmark:Badger MapsButtondownCheckout PageClosing CreditsHelloQueryRailsDevsRemote Game JobsReputationStackerTalknotesVizologiBonsaiUpHexand 1 more
Heroku + Mailgun:Buttondown
Bitbucket
Buttondown
BitbucketButtondown
QibbleWith RailwayFrontend Framework
Railway + Next.js:
Agentcard
Blink.new
CoffeeChat Bot
Databerry
Git Pitcher
HTML Pub
MCPJam
MindFort
Notte
npmpackage.infoParasocial
PingPromptand 25 more
AgentcardBlink.newCoffeeChat BotDataberryGit PitcherHTML PubMCPJamMindFortNottenpmpackage.infoParasocialPingPromptand 25 more
LiteLLM
PostizRailway + Astro:
Breadcrumb
devlogs.gg
DockDuck
Hookdeck
Breadcrumbdevlogs.ggDockDuckHookdeckDatabase
Pigeon
Podpod
Pull Sense
DwellRecord
MaritimeTransactional Email
Railway + Resend:AgentcardBlink.newClawSecureGit PitcherHTML Pub
KlyxshotMCPJamMindFort
munoNottePensievePingPromptand 21 more
AgentcardBlink.newClawSecureGit PitcherHTML PubKlyxshotMCPJamMindFortmunoNottePensievePingPromptand 21 moreRailway + Postmark:
Chat ThingClawSecure
SublayGedd.it
Chat ThingClawSecureSublayGedd.itRailway + SendGrid:AttributerFieldySupercycle
LLM API
Railway + OpenAI API:Blink.newChat Thing
Hamming AI (YC S24)munoNotte
Pretty Prompt
Scorecard
Skippr AIUCP RadarWikiTrip 2.0agentfield
BetterClawand 5 more
Blink.newChat ThingHamming AI (YC S24)munoNottePretty PromptScorecardSkippr AIUCP RadarWikiTrip 2.0agentfieldBetterClawand 5 more
Symvol Video AI for Education
SpiralNeither quite right?
See the whole hosting decision →
Vercel
Netlify
CloudflareEdge platformCheap global hosting with Workers, plus database (D1) and storage (R2) on the same platform.vs Railway →
Render
Fly.io
Amazon Web ServicesHyperscaler cloudThe widest catalog of building blocks — Lambda, containers, managed databases, queues — to assemble your own infrastructure.vs Railway →
Hetzner CloudYour own serverA lot of CPU and RAM per euro, in European, US and Singapore regions.vs Railway →
CoolifyYour own serverA Heroku- or Vercel-style dashboard on your own server, with many one-click services.vs Railway →