Railway
Usage-billed cloud platform for deploying apps, databases and cron jobs from GitHub or Docker images.
Railway is a cloud deployment platform from Railway Corp. that runs apps, databases, volumes and cron jobs from a GitHub repository or a Docker image, on infrastructure the company runs itself. Billing is by the second for CPU, memory, storage and egress: Hobby costs $5 a month and Pro $20 a month, each including that amount of usage, and a free plan gives $1 of credit a month after a 30-day trial.
Facts checked on against the sources listed at the end of this page.
- GitHub stars
- 621
- npm downloads a week
- 424kup 51% on the week before
- Latest release
- v5.63.120 hours ago
- Releases in 90 days
- 7about 2 a month
About Railway
Railway deploys code from a repository, with or without a Dockerfile, or a prebuilt Docker image. A project can hold several services, databases and volumes that talk over a private network, with static and ephemeral environments, variable and secret management, and built-in logs, metrics and tracing.
You pay for what services use: CPU, memory, volume storage and network egress, billed per second. The Hobby and Pro subscriptions include $5 and $20 of usage, so a small project can cost only the subscription fee. Deployments run in four regions: California, Virginia, Amsterdam and Singapore.
Railway was founded in 2020 by Jake Cooper. On 22 January 2026 it raised a $100 million Series B led by TQ Ventures, and it reports more than 2 million developers on the platform.
A good fit for
- Full-stack apps that need a web service, a database and a worker in one project
- Side projects that fit inside the $5 of usage included with Hobby
- Teams moving from Heroku-style Git deploys that also want Docker image support
- Apps with uneven traffic, since billing follows actual CPU and memory use
Not a good fit for
- A permanent free tier for real workloads: after the trial the free plan gives only $1 of credit a month
- Fixed monthly bills: costs rise with CPU, memory and egress beyond the included usage
- Apps that need a region outside the four Railway offers (US West, US East, EU West and Southeast Asia)
- Self-hosting: the platform is proprietary
npm downloads
Weekly downloads of @railway/cli, last 12 months. Updated 29 September 2026.
Main features
- Deploy from GitHub or an image
- Build from a repository with or without a Dockerfile, or run Docker images from several registries.
- One-click databases
- Provision PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis or MongoDB next to your app in the same project.
- Private networking and volumes
- Services reach each other over a private network, and volumes give persistent storage up to 5 GB on Hobby and 1 TB on Pro.
- Environments
- Keep separate static and ephemeral environments for the same project, each with its own variables.
- Cron jobs and templates
- Run services on a schedule, and start projects from templates.
- Railway CLI
- Create or link projects and deploy the current folder with railway up.
Railway pricing
Subscriptions set a monthly minimum that counts toward usage: Hobby is $5 a month with $5 of usage, Pro is $20 a month with $20 of usage, and Enterprise is custom. Usage is billed at $20 per vCPU a month, $10 per GB of RAM a month, $0.15 per GB of volume storage a month and $0.05 per GB of egress.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | A 30-day trial with a one-time $5 credit, then $1 of credit a month. Up to 0.5 GB RAM, 1 vCPU and a 0.5 GB volume per service. |
| Hobby | $5 a month | $5 of usage a month, up to 48 GB RAM and 48 vCPU per service, 5 GB volumes, community support and 7-day logs. |
| Pro | $20 a month | $20 of usage a month, unlimited workspace seats, up to 1 TB RAM and 1,000 vCPU per service, 1 TB volumes and 30-day logs. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Up to 2.4 TB RAM and 2,400 vCPU per service, SSO, HIPAA BAAs, dedicated VMs and 90-day logs. |
Prices in USD, checked on 27 September 2026. Current prices on railway.com.
Getting started
Install the Railway CLI.
npm i -g @railway/cliLog in and create a project.
railway login railway initDeploy the current folder.
railway up
Recent releases
Questions about Railway
Is Railway free?
New users get a 30-day trial with a one-time $5 credit. After that, the free plan gives $1 of credit a month with services limited to 0.5 GB RAM and 1 vCPU.
How much does Railway cost?
Hobby is $5 a month and Pro is $20 a month, and each includes that much usage. Extra usage is billed at $20 per vCPU a month, $10 per GB of RAM a month and $0.05 per GB of egress.
Is Railway's domain railway.app or railway.com?
The site and docs are at railway.com, including railway.com/pricing and docs.railway.com.
Which databases does Railway support?
Railway can provision PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis and MongoDB, and you can run other databases from Docker images with volumes.
What are alternatives to Railway?
Common alternatives include Render, Fly.io, Heroku and DigitalOcean App Platform, or Coolify if you want to self-host.