Heroku vs Railway.
monthly prices compared · prices as of · 0 shapes both sell
Heroku and Railway sell no shape in common today, so there is nothing to put side by side at the same size. Both are the same kind of platform, so what a price buys is the same shape at each and the money is most of what separates them. What can be compared is the entry price, the free tier, what stops when the app is idle and what each one meters on top, which is below.
Heroku and Railway sell nothing of the same shape, so the comparison is on entry price: $5/mo against $5/mo, read 17 Sept 2026.
Herokuall 8 prices →It takes your code or an image and runs a container of it for you.
starts at $5/mo for Eco
Railwayall 2 prices →It takes your code or an image and runs a container of it for you.
starts at $5/mo for Hobby
Heroku and Railway sell nothing of the same shape today: one of them prices a runtime of a stated size and the other prices an account with the compute metered on top. The table above is the honest comparison, and the compare tool will put any two of their plans beside each other with the caveats attached.
Frequently asked
- Is Heroku cheaper than Railway?
- They sell no shape in common, so there is no size at which one is cheaper than the other. On the entry price it is $5/mo against $5/mo, read on 17 Sept 2026.
- What is the difference between Heroku and Railway?
- Heroku: You push a repository or an image and the platform builds it, runs it and keeps it running. There is no operating system to look after and no root, which is the point: the container is replaced rather than repaired. What you size is memory and a share of a processor. Railway: You push a repository or an image and the platform builds it, runs it and keeps it running. There is no operating system to look after and no root, which is the point: the container is replaced rather than repaired. What you size is memory and a share of a processor.
- Does Heroku or Railway stop your app when nothing calls it?
- Heroku: it publishes no free tier. Railway: it publishes no free tier.
- What does each one charge on top of the plan price?
- Heroku: transfer not published, builds not published, members not published. Railway: transfer $0.05 per GB, builds not published, members not published. A rate that is not published is not a rate of zero, and none of these is folded into the monthly figures above.
- How current are these prices?
- Both catalogues are read every day. Heroku was last read 17 Sept 2026 and Railway 17 Sept 2026; the whole index was refreshed 17 Sept 2026. Prices exclude tax, and a tier that costs nothing is listed here and is the cheaper of two nowhere.