Railway

What it is for

Railway is a usage-metered deploy desk: you drop a GitHub repo on a project canvas, it becomes a service, and you can start Free at $0/month (30-day trial with $5 credits, then $1/month). Use it when the job is a service you start at $0 / $1, not when you need a $20 chat seat.

What makes it unique: the cover is the official Railway project canvas (albumum-store / production, backend + app service cards, GitHub ticks) from the docs projects still — not a pricing card. The canvas itself is ops of Projects.

Key features

• Projects — a canvas of services in one environment (project still; pricing Projects). One workspace. The cover is ops. Free is 5 projects during the trial, then 1. Hobby is 50; Pro is 100.
• Services — a GitHub repo or Docker image you run (pricing GitHub repo deployment / Docker Image). A process, not the canvas. Preview environments and variables are ops of this. The CLI is install. Free is 5 services/project during the trial, then 3.
• Volumes — a disk a service keeps across deploys (pricing Volume storage). A disk, not a process. Free is 0.5 GB (1 volume after trial). Usage is $0.00000006/GB/sec.
• Sandboxes — isolated Linux VMs for agents and untrusted code (pricing Sandboxes). A throwaway VM, not a long-running service. Billed only while the sandbox CPU/memory runs (~$50/vCPU-month and ~$50/GB-month printed). Free: 10 sandboxes/environment, 2 vCPU / 2 GB max.
• Railway Agent — the in-project agent that can inspect and change a deploy (Your Agent just got way better; pricing AI). A generate, not a service card. Default spend limits: Hobby $5/month, Pro $20/month. That cap is SKU of this.

CPU / RAM / egress are the usage meters, not extra desks. Replicas are scale of Services. Custom domains and SSO sit on paid / commit cards.

Who it's for

Best fit: app teams who will stay on Free $0 during the 30-day $5-credit trial (then $1/month, 1 project, 3 services) while they ship a first GitHub service, then land on Hobby at $5 minimum / month when they need 50 projects and 48 vCPU — or Pro at $20 minimum when they need 100 projects and 30-day logs.

Pricing

Verified 2026-10-22 (Asia/Shanghai) from railway.com/pricing. Plans are a minimum plus usage. Resource rates print on the same page.

• Free — $0/month. 30-day trial with $5 credits, then $1/month. No card to start. After trial: 1 project, 3 services/project, 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB RAM, 0.5 GB volume, 1 replica, 3-day logs. Community support. Global regions and cron jobs are trial-only on this card.
• Hobby — $5 minimum usage / month. $5 usage credits included. 50 projects. 50 services/project. Up to 48 vCPU / 48 GB. 6 replicas. 5 GB volume. 7-day logs. 2 custom domains. Single developer workspace. 99.9% availability target.
• Pro — $20 minimum usage / month. $20 usage credits. 100 projects. 100 services/project. Up to 1,000 vCPU / 1 TB. 42 replicas. 1 TB volume. 30-day logs. Unlimited workspace seats. Railway support. 99.99% availability target.
• Enterprise — custom / Contact Sales. Unlimited projects. Up to 2,400 vCPU / 2.4 TB. Highest compute. 90-day logs. SSO, HIPAA BAA, dedicated VMs, BYOC.
• Usage (services) — Memory $0.00000386/GB/sec. CPU $0.00000772/vCPU/sec. Volumes $0.00000006/GB/sec. Egress $0.05/GB. Object Storage $0.015/GB-month (egress free on the printed row).
• Sandboxes — Memory / CPU $0.00001929/GB/sec and per vCPU/sec (page prints ~$50/GB-month and ~$50/vCPU-month, active only). Egress $0.05/GB.
• Commit unlocks (monthly spend) — HIPAA BAA $1,000; Log history / RBAC / SSO / audit $2,000; Enterprise support + 48 vCPU replicas $5,000; Dedicated VMs $10,000.

Confirm checkout; taxes follow your location.

Limitations / costs

• Free becomes $1/month after the 30-day $5-credit trial, and drops to 1 project / 3 services. Hobby is the $5 floor.
• Usage is a second bill. The $5 / $20 cards are minima; CPU, RAM, volume, and egress still meter.
• A deploy desk, not a self-host control plane. For a PaaS you run yourself see Coolify or Dokploy.

Alternatives

• Coolify — a self-hosted PaaS when you will not pay Railway usage.
• Dokploy — a Docker-compose control plane you host when the job is your VPS, not Railway’s canvas.
• Neon — hosted Postgres when you only need a database, not a service canvas.

Official tutorial

Official Railway channel video: Run TanStack Start 1.0 on Railway (oEmbed author: Railway). First-party deploy walkthrough; the docs project-canvas still is the cover.

Written path: railway.com/pricing plus the projects still.

Website

https://railway.com

Repository

https://github.com/railwayapp/docs

Source

Catalog row curated for AI Tools Nav. Cover is the official Railway project canvas from the docs still. Dollars checked on railway.com/pricing (Free $0 then $1 after trial; Hobby $5 min; Pro $20 min; service CPU $0.00000772/vCPU-sec). Tutorial oEmbed author: Railway.

Last verified

2026-10-22 (Asia/Shanghai) editorial check.