Heroku vs Railway

Heroku uses fixed-size dynos with per-dyno monthly pricing. Railway bills by the second on actual CPU and memory utilization and scales vertically without instance size selection.

What's good about...

Heroku logo Heroku

  • Fully-managed infra, minimal ops overhead
  • Heroku Postgres is a one-click, battle-tested database
  • Extensive add-on marketplace

Railway logo Railway

  • Billed by the second on actual CPU and memory utilization
  • App Sleeping reduces costs on low-traffic workloads
  • Self-owned hardware across US, EU, and Asia
  • Template directory with 25% kickback for template authors

Price comparison

How do Heroku's prices compare against Railway?

VM Small

Closest config to 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM.
Heroku Heroku
$50.00 / mo Dyno 1 GB RAM (Standard 2X)
Railway Railway
$30.00 / mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM

VM Medium

Closest config to 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM.
Heroku Heroku
$250.00 / mo Dyno 2.5 GB RAM (Performance M)
Railway Railway
$160.00 / mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM

VM Large

Closest config to 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (dedicated preferred).
Heroku Heroku
$500.00 / mo Dyno 14 GB RAM (Performance L)
Railway Railway
$320.00 / mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM

Block Storage

Closest config to 100+ GB SSD, 3,000+ IOPS, 100+ MB/s throughput, no snapshots.
Heroku Heroku
--
Railway Railway
$15.55 / mo 100 GB

Object Storage

Closest config to 1 TB stored, 100 GB in / 250 GB out, 1M GET, 100k PUT/POST.
Heroku Heroku
--
Railway Railway
$15.00 / mo 1 TB ($0.015 / GB / mo)

Load Balancer

Closest config to TCP, 1 node (1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM), 200+ Mbps, 1,000 conn/sec, 1 TB processed/mo.
Heroku Heroku
Included in plan
Railway Railway
Included in plan

Managed PostgreSQL

Closest config to 1 node, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50+ GB storage, 10 GB read / 5 GB write per month.
Heroku Heroku
$50.00 / mo 4 GB RAM, 64 GB storage
Railway Railway
$87.82 / mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB storage

Managed Redis®*

Closest config to 1 node, 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 10 req/s, 1 KB avg request size.
Heroku Heroku
$200.00 / mo 1 GB RAM
Railway Railway
$30.00 / mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM

Free egress allowance

Heroku Heroku
2 TB / mo per app
Railway Railway
--

1 TB of egress beyond allowance

Heroku Heroku
Not publicly listed Bandwidth is soft limited per app (2 TB / mo)
Railway Railway
$50.00 $0.05 / GB

Heads up: We do our best to keep these specs & prices accurate. However, cloud costs may fluctuate based on region, usage, and other factors not listed here. These are estimates based on common setups and are for informational purposes only. Always verify current rates & exact specs with the provider before provisioning.

Which services do they offer

Company details

Website
Heroku Heroku
heroku.com
Railway Railway
railway.com
Headquarters
Heroku Heroku
United States of America
Railway Railway
United States of America
Founded
Heroku Heroku
2007
Railway Railway
2020
Data Center Locations
Heroku Heroku
10
Railway Railway
4
Example Customers
Heroku Heroku
Airbase, Dovetail, Hotel Engine, ClickMechanic, Ambassify
Railway Railway
--

Alternatives to consider

Compare Heroku and Railway against other cloud providers.

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Our data for Heroku was last updated on Feb. 12, 2026, and for Railway on March 26, 2026.