Heroku
vs
Railway
Both run managed containers, Postgres and Redis. Heroku bills fixed dyno sizes and charges less for Postgres, while Railway bills actual CPU and memory and adds object storage, cron jobs and serverless functions.
What's good about each
- Add-on marketplace for databases, logging, monitoring and email
- Postgres with forks, followers and rollback
- Network-isolated Private Spaces across the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific
- Salesforce integration through Heroku Connect and AppLink
- 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 a 15% kickback for template authors, 25% with active support
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Heroku | Railway | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $50.00 /mo 1 GB RAM (Standard-2X) | $30.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM | 40% cheaper on Railway |
| Medium VM | $250.00 /mo 2.5 GB RAM (Performance-M) | $160.00 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM | 36% cheaper on Railway |
| Large VM | $500.00 /mo 14 GB RAM (Performance-L) | $320.00 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM | 36% cheaper on Railway |
| Block storage | -- Not listed | $15.00 /mo 100 GB | |
| Object storage | -- Not listed | $15.00 /mo 1 TB | |
| PostgreSQL | $50.00 /mo 4 GB RAM, 64 GB storage (Standard-0) | $87.50 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB storage | 43% cheaper on Heroku |
| Redis | $200.00 /mo 1 GB RAM (Premium-5) | $30.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM | 85% cheaper on Railway |
| Load balancer | Included in plan | Included in plan | |
| Egress allowance | 2 TB / mo per app | -- Not listed | |
| Egress | Not publicly listed Soft limit of 2 TB / mo per app | $50.00 /TB $0.05 / GB |
Heads up: Figures take each provider's closest plan to a common setup, and vary by region and usage. Hover a service for the reference configuration. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.
Services
Managed services each provider offers.
Compliance
Frameworks each provider states on its own site, each linked to its source.
| Framework | Heroku | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II |
| ISO 27001 | Yes | -- |
| HIPAA | Yes | Yes |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
| PCI DSS | Level 1, Heroku Shield only | -- |
Heads up: Each entry links to the provider's own statement. An attestation can cover one tier, one region or the platform alone rather than every service. Verify the scope before you rely on it. A dash means we found nothing to link to, not that the provider lacks it.
Company details
| Fact | Heroku | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2007 | 2020 |
| Headquarters | USA | USA |
| Locations | 10 | 4 |
| Example customers | World Economic Forum, PixieBrix, TAO Drive, Fastcall | -- |
| Website | heroku.com | railway.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Heroku and Railway against other cloud providers.
Our data for Heroku was last updated on Sept. 18, 2026, and for Railway on Sept. 18, 2026.