Railway
Railway Corp · 🚀 PaaS
Railway is an infrastructure platform where you can provision infrastructure, develop with it locally, and then deploy to the cloud.
Overview
Railway makes provisioning and deploying back-end services feel like a front-end workflow. Connect a repository or start from a template, and Railway detects your stack, provisions databases — Postgres, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB — and deploys with sensible defaults. Its CLI lets you develop against the same infrastructure locally.
Railway’s free usage runs on a $5 monthly credit with roughly 500 execution hours; services use shared CPU and 1GB of RAM. Because billing is usage-based, idle services cost very little. Railway has revised its free and trial terms several times, so confirm the current offer before you rely on it.
It suits full-stack apps, APIs, background workers and anything that needs a real database next to the app — without the ceremony of wiring up cloud primitives yourself.
Pros
- ✓Provisions Postgres, MySQL and Redis in a click
- ✓Deploy from Git, a template or a Dockerfile
- ✓Clean usage-based pricing — idle services cost little
- ✓Strong developer experience with a capable CLI
- ✓Great for stateful apps and background workers
Cons
- ✕Free usage is a limited monthly credit, not unlimited
- ✕Free and trial terms have changed repeatedly over time
- ✕Shared CPU on the free credit
- ✕Fewer global regions than edge platforms
Best for
- →Full-stack apps and APIs that need a database
- →Background workers and cron-style jobs
- →Developers who want managed Postgres or Redis with little setup
Getting started
- 1 Sign up and create a new project
- 2 Deploy from a GitHub repo, a template, or a Dockerfile
- 3 Add a database plugin (Postgres, MySQL or Redis) if needed
- 4 Set environment variables and a start command
- 5 Generate a domain or attach your own
Features
- ✓One-click Deployments
- ✓Database Provisioning
- ✓Environment Variables
- ✓Custom Domains
- ✓Automatic Scaling
- ✓Team Collaboration
Languages
FAQ
Railway provides a monthly usage credit rather than an always-free tier. Light or idle services can fit within it, but terms change — check Railway's pricing page.
Yes. Postgres, MySQL, Redis and MongoDB can be provisioned as plugins right next to your app.
Yes. Railway can build from a Dockerfile or auto-detect common stacks.
Deploy these projects to Railway
Open-source projects and templates that run on Railway's free tier.