Railway review

Railway ranks third for developers who want to deploy quickly and pay close to actual usage. A new account gets a 30-day trial with $5 of credits and no credit card, then moves to a Free plan. Hobby has a $5 monthly minimum that comes back as $5 of usage credits, and you are only charged for extra resource usage after that. Hobby services can reach 48 vCPU and 48 GB of RAM, with up to 5 replicas and 5 GB of storage, which is far more room than most entry plans offer. Pro has a $20 minimum with $20 of credits, unlimited workspace seats, a 99.99% availability target and 30-day log history. Railway also bundles vertical autoscaling, replicas and an AI agent with a default spend limit. The catch is that usage pricing makes monthly bills less predictable than fixed instances, and Hobby is a single developer workspace, so teams start on Pro.

Who it is for

Developers and small teams who want to deploy services and databases quickly and pay for what they use.

Price

Free plan after a 30-day trial; Hobby $5 minimum usage per month with $5 of credits; Pro $20 minimum usage.

Hobby $ 5 minimum usage For hobbyist developers building side projects
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 9, 2026.

Key features

• 30-day free trial with $5 of credits, then a Free plan
• Hobby includes $5 of monthly usage credits with up to 48 vCPU and 48 GB RAM per service
• Pro includes $20 of monthly usage credits and unlimited workspace seats
• Vertical autoscaling and horizontal scaling through replicas
• Railway Agent and sandboxes for AI-assisted work inside projects

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Monthly plan fee is credited back as usage
• Strength: High per-service limits even on Hobby
• Strength: Trial needs no credit card
• Weakness: Bills follow resource usage, so heavy services cost more than the plan minimum
• Weakness: Hobby is a single developer workspace
• Weakness: SSO, RBAC and audit logs sit on higher spend tiers

Key facts

• Free plan: Yes, after a 30-day trial with $5 credits
• Paid plans: Hobby $5 and Pro $20 minimum usage per month
• Availability target: 99.9% on Hobby, 99.99% on Pro
• Log history: 7 days on Hobby, 30 days on Pro

Where it ranks

Railway is No. 3 in our Best App Hosting Platforms verdict.