Railway vs Cloudways Pricing (2026)

How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.

Railway Cloudways
Starts at Custom $14/mo
Number of plans 4 9
Free plan
Free trial
Pricing model usage-based hybrid

Free

$0/mo
  • Start with a 30-day free trial with $5 credits, then $1 per month
  • Up to 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB RAM per service
  • 0.5 GB of volume storage
  • Community support

Hobby

Custom
  • Includes $5 of monthly usage credits
  • After credits are used, you'll only be charged for extra resource usage
  • Up to 48 vCPU / 48 GB RAM per service
  • Up to 5 replicas, at 8 vCPU / 8 GB RAM per replica
  • Up to 5 GB storage
  • Single developer workspace
  • Community support
  • 99.9% Availability Target
  • 7-Day Log History
  • Global regions

Pro

Popular
Custom
  • Includes $20 of monthly usage credits
  • After credits are used, you'll only be charged for extra resource usage
  • Up to 1,000 vCPU / 1 TB RAM per service
  • Up to 42 replicas, at 24 vCPU / 24 GB RAM per replica
  • Up to 1 TB storage
  • Unlimited workspace seats included
  • Railway Support
  • 99.99% Availability Target
  • 30-Day Log History
  • Concurrent global regions

Enterprise

Custom
  • 90-Day Log History
  • Single Sign-On
  • 18-Month Audit Log Retention
  • Role-Based Access Control
  • HIPAA BAAs
  • Support SLOs
  • 99.999% Availability Target
  • Highest compute limits
  • Dedicated VMs
  • Bring your own cloud
  • Up to 2,400 vCPU / 2,4 TB RAM per service
  • Up to 50 replicas, at 48 vCPU / 48 GB RAM per service

Micro

$14/mo
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

Small

$28/mo
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

Medium

Popular
$54/mo
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

Large

$99/mo
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

8XL

$342/mo
  • 4 Free AI Copilot Credits
  • Lightning Stack
  • Unlimited Visits
  • Unlimited Websites

Growth

$99/mo
  • True Autoscaling
  • Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
  • Redis Caching
  • Object Cache Pro + Relay
  • Free Managed Migration

Scale

Popular
$199/mo
  • True Autoscaling
  • Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
  • Redis Caching
  • Object Cache Pro + Relay
  • Free Managed Migration

Plus

$399/mo
  • True Autoscaling
  • Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
  • Redis Caching
  • Object Cache Pro + Relay
  • Free Managed Migration

Enterprise

Custom
  • Optimized resources for your traffic and usage patterns
  • Custom resource allocation and baseline capacity
  • Expert consultation to match plan to requirements

Railway vs Cloudways FAQ

Which one is cheaper?
One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
Can I use either one for free?
Railway has a free plan. Cloudways doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
How do they charge?
Different approach here. Railway uses usage-based pricing, while Cloudways goes with hybrid. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
Which one is a better deal?
Depends on what you need. Railway: Railway sits in the affordable, developer-first middle ground — cheaper and simpler than AWS/GCP for small teams, but more polished and less DIY than raw Docker-on-a-VPS setups. They're chasing indie devs and startups who want Heroku-like ergonomics without Heroku's now-inflated pricing. Cloudways: Cloudways sits in the middle of the managed hosting pack — cheaper than fully managed premium players like WP Engine or Kinsta, but pricier than raw cloud hosting since you're paying for the management layer on top of DigitalOcean/AWS/Vultr costs. They're clearly courting developers and agencies who want cloud flexibility without babysitting servers, not enterprises who'd go straight to AWS.

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