Koyeb vs Railway (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Railway grades higher than Koyeb: 2.6 against 1.8 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Railway grades higher on value for money and the free plan. They get the same grade on features, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Railway
App and database hosting billed by the second for usage
Which one is for you
Pick Koyeb if
- Fits if you deploy containers and want autoscaling
- Works for AI jobs that need GPUs and per-second billing
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want a free plan
- Pricey if you run one small app, at $29 plus compute
- Watch out: the pricing page says Koyeb is joining Mistral AI and doesn't say what changes
- Watch out: private Slack support, SSO and RBAC are on higher plans, and the SLA starts at Scale, $299
- Watch out: the monthly total depends on usage
Pick Railway if
- Fits if you run side projects that only run part of the time
- Works for teams that want unlimited seats on the $20 plan
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you stay on Free: 1 project, 3 services, 0.5 GB RAM
- Watch out: usage above the included credit is billed on top of the minimum
- Watch out: Hobby has community support, and support and the 99.99% target start on Pro
- Not for you if you need SSO, RBAC or HIPAA BAAs, as those are Enterprise
How we grade them
| 1.8GPAKoyebWeak | 2.6GPARailwayGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | D$29 a month plus compute on Pro, with $10 of compute included, against a category middle of $11. Scale is $299. | BHobby is $5 minimum usage a month, inside the cheaper quarter ($5.28), but usage above the credit is on top and egress is $0.05 per GB. Pro is $20. |
| Free plan and trial | FNo free plan, apart from a 5-hour Postgres tier. | CA 30-day trial with $5 and no card, then a Free plan at $1 a month, limited to 1 project, 3 services and 0.5 GB RAM a service. |
| Features | BAutoscaling and scale-to-zero, GPUs, Postgres, 7 regions, GitHub and registry deploys, CLI, API and Terraform. Nothing core is missing in the listing. | BUsage billing, templates, volumes, object storage, replicas and regions, and sandboxes. The listing names no core gap. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. You connect repos or containers and pick instance sizes. | CNo store rating on record. You set up projects, services and databases. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, with GitHub, Docker, Terraform, Pulumi, Postgres and AWS. | BWeb, iOS and Android, but no desktop app and no integrations listed. |
| Best for | autoscaling containers and GPUs on a usage bill | side projects billed by usage |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Koyeb and Railway. How we grade
Price against what you get
Koyeb starts at $29 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Railway starts at $5 a month and scores 2.7.
They score the same, and Railway starts $24 a month lower. Of the other web hosts on the chart, none scores higher than Koyeb for less, and none scores higher than Railway for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Railway also covers databases and AI agents.
At a glance
| Koyeb | Railway | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Paid | Free trial |
| Starts at | $29 per month plus compute (Pro) | $5 minimum usage per month (Hobby) |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | None listed | 30-day trial with a one-time $5 credit, no card required. |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Koyeb | Railway Corp. |
| Price read from | koyeb.com | railway.com |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Koyeb
- The plan fee is on top of compute, which is billed per second, so the monthly total depends on usage.
- The pricing page carries a banner saying Koyeb is joining Mistral AI; what that means for the product was not stated there.
- Private Slack support, SSO and RBAC are limited to higher plans, and an uptime SLA starts with Scale.
- No free plan is listed on the pricing page, apart from a 5-hour free Postgres tier.
Railway
- Egress is $0.05 per GB, and usage above the included credit is charged on top of the minimum.
- After the trial, the Free plan allows 1 project, 3 services and 0.5 GB of RAM per service.
- Hobby is a single developer workspace with community support; support and a 99.99% target begin on Pro.
- SSO, role-based access control and HIPAA BAAs are Enterprise only.
Key features
Koyeb
- Serverless compute
- Apps run in autoscaling VMs on bare metal, with scale-to-zero and per-second billing, and deploy from a GitHub push or a container registry.
- GPU instances
- The pricing page lists GPUs from RTX-4000-SFF-ADA at $0.50 an hour up to 8x H200 at $24 an hour.
- Serverless Postgres
- Postgres instances are billed by the second, from a free 5-hour tier up to larger instances, with storage at $0.50 per GB a month.
- Seven regions
- Pro and Scale deploy to 7 regions in the US, EU and Asia; Scale adds AWS regions, and Enterprise lists 50 on-demand regions.
- Networking
- 1 TB of bandwidth a month is included, with extra at $0.02 per GB in the EU and US and $0.04 in Asia, plus automatic HTTPS, private networking and WebSockets.
- CLI, API and Terraform
- Deployment can be driven from the CLI, an API, Terraform or Pulumi.
Railway
- Usage-based billing
- Memory costs $0.00000386 per GB-second and CPU $0.00000772 per vCPU-second, so an idle service costs little.
- Templates
- The templates page offers ready-made setups for apps and databases that deploy to a project in a few steps.
- Volumes and object storage
- Persistent volumes are billed per GB-second and object storage is $0.015 per GB-month with free egress.
- Sandboxes and VMs
- Isolated Linux VMs for agents, builds and untrusted code, billed for CPU used and memory held, at about $50 per vCPU-month.
- Replicas and regions
- Services can run up to 5 replicas on Hobby and 42 on Pro, across concurrent global regions.
- Mobile app
- The site lists a Railway app for iOS and Android.
Plans
Koyeb
Pro$29
per month, plus compute used
Includes $10 of compute, 10 users, 100 services, 5 concurrent builds, volumes and snapshots, and email and chat support.
Scale$299
per month, plus compute used
Includes $100 of compute, 50 users, 1,000 services, 20 concurrent builds, AWS regions, a Slack cross-connect and a 99.9% uptime SLA.
EnterpriseCustom
Starts at $1,000 a month, according to the page: private dedicated locations, unlimited users, SSO, RBAC, audit trail and 24x7 support.
Railway
Free$0
per month, after the trial
After a 30-day trial with $5 in credits, $1 per month. Up to 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB RAM per service, 0.5 GB volume.
Hobby$5
minimum usage per month, includes $5 of usage
Includes $5 of monthly usage credit, up to 48 vCPU and 48 GB RAM per service, a single developer workspace and 7-day logs.
Pro$20
minimum usage per month, includes $20 of usage
Includes $20 of monthly usage credit, unlimited workspace seats, up to 1,000 vCPU per service and a 99.99% availability target.
EnterpriseCustom
Single sign-on, role-based access control, HIPAA BAAs, dedicated VMs, bring-your-own-cloud and a 99.999% availability target.
Ways to pay less
Koyeb
- Startups
Up to $30k in credits for early-stage startups
The pricing page offers early-stage startups up to $30k in credits; the details are on a separate startup program page.
- Other savings
Up to 50% off with long-term reservations
The pricing page says saving plans with long-term reservations get up to 50% off on-demand prices, arranged through sales.
Railway
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Koyeb or Railway?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Railway is cheaper to start with: $5 a month, against $29 a month for Koyeb. Koyeb starts at $29 per month plus compute (Pro), and Railway starts at $5 minimum usage per month (Hobby).
Which has a free plan, Koyeb or Railway?
As of Nov 12, 2026, neither Koyeb nor Railway has a free plan. Railway has a free trial.
Which platforms do Koyeb and Railway run on?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Railway lists iOS and Android apps. Both list a web app. A platform missing from a listing is one its maker's pages did not mention.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.