Heroku vs Railway: Which Platform-as-a-Service is Right for You?

Compare Heroku and Railway for deploying web applications. Heroku offers enterprise-grade reliability with higher costs, while Railway provides modern developer experience at significantly lower prices.

Updated 2026-09 · 2026

Heroku

Enterprise-grade PaaS with extensive add-on ecosystem

$7per dyno/month

Strengths

+Mature platform with 15+ years of stability
+Extensive marketplace with 200+ add-ons
+Enterprise support and compliance certifications

Weaknesses

-Significantly more expensive than competitors
-Free tier permanently eliminated (2022)
-Eco dyno tier also discontinued (2025)

Best for

Enterprise teams needing compliance, extensive integrations, and willing to pay premium prices for stability

Railway

Modern deployment platform with usage-based pricing

$5Hobby plan/month (includes $5 usage credit)

Strengths

+Usage-based pricing (pay only for what you use)
+Modern developer experience with instant deploys
+Built-in databases and services

Weaknesses

-Younger platform with smaller ecosystem
-Fewer third-party integrations
-Less enterprise-focused features

Best for

Indie developers, startups, and small teams wanting modern tooling at affordable prices

Feature Comparison

Feature	Heroku	Railway
Free Tier	None (removed 2022, Eco tier discontinued 2025)	No free tier; Hobby plan $5/month includes $5 credit
Starting Price	$7/month per dyno (Basic)	$5/month (Hobby) usage-based from $0.000231/GB-hour
Deployment Speed	3-5 minutes average	30-90 seconds average
Database Hosting	Via add-ons (Heroku Postgres from $5/month)	Built-in (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB)
Auto-scaling	Yes (additional cost)	Yes (usage-based pricing)
Custom Domains	Yes, with automatic SSL	Yes, with automatic SSL
CI/CD Integration	GitHub, GitLab (via add-ons)	GitHub, GitLab (built-in)
Container Support	Yes (Docker)	Yes (Docker, Nixpacks)
Environment Variables	Config vars (CLI or dashboard)	Variables (CLI or dashboard)
Monitoring & Logs	Basic included, advanced via add-ons	Built-in logs and metrics
Add-on Marketplace	200+ add-ons available	Limited (templates and plugins)
Enterprise Features	Private Spaces, compliance, SSO	Teams, priority support (growing)

The Verdict

Railway offers significantly better value for indie developers and small teams with its usage-based pricing and modern developer experience. Heroku remains the choice for enterprises requiring extensive compliance certifications, a mature add-on ecosystem, and premium support—but you'll pay several times more for comparable resources. For most new projects in 2026, Railway's combination of affordability, speed, and developer experience makes it the smarter choice.

How to switch from Heroku to Railway

1Export your Heroku Postgres database with `heroku pg:backups:capture` followed by `heroku pg:backups:download`, which produces a custom-format `.dump` file you can restore anywhere with `pg_restore`.
2Copy all config vars with `heroku config` and manually re-enter them as environment variables in your new Railway project (or use the Railway CLI's `railway variables set` for scripting).
3Create a new Railway project, connect your GitHub repo, and let Railway auto-detect your build via Nixpacks, or add a Dockerfile if you need more control over the build.
4Provision a Railway PostgreSQL/MySQL/Redis instance and restore your dumped database with `pg_restore` (or `psql` for plain-text dumps).
5Recreate any Heroku add-on functionality (logging, error tracking, scheduled jobs) using Railway's built-in cron jobs and logs, or connect third-party services like Sentry and Better Stack directly.
6Point your custom domain's DNS to Railway, verify SSL is issued, run both deployments in parallel for a few days to confirm parity, then decommission the Heroku app and notify your team of the new deploy URL and CLI commands.

Heroku vs Railway: common questions

How do I export my data from Heroku before switching?+

Use Heroku's `pg:backups:capture` and `pg:backups:download` CLI commands to export your Postgres database as a `.dump` file (custom-format pg_dump). For config vars, run `heroku config` and copy the output manually since there's no bulk export tool. Any files stored on Heroku's ephemeral filesystem won't survive anyway, so check if you're already using S3 or similar for those.

What do I lose by moving from Heroku to Railway?+

You lose access to Heroku's 200+ add-on marketplace (Papertrail, New Relic, etc. need direct replacements or third-party accounts), Private Spaces for network isolation, and formal SOC 2/HIPAA compliance documentation that some enterprise contracts require. Railway covers the core hosting and database needs fine, but if your stack leans on specific Heroku add-ons, budget time to find or self-host equivalents.

Is Railway's free tier enough for a small team?+

Railway doesn't have a true free tier anymore — the Hobby plan is $5/month and includes $5 of usage credit, which covers a small app or two with low traffic. For a small team running a real production app plus a staging environment, expect to pay for usage beyond the credit, typically $10-30/month total depending on RAM and compute needs.

Will my CI/CD and GitHub integrations still work after switching?+

Yes, Railway has native GitHub integration for auto-deploys on push, so reconnecting your repo is usually a 2-minute setup. You'll need to re-add any GitHub Actions secrets or webhook URLs that pointed to Heroku's deploy API, and update your `Procfile`-based scripts since Railway uses Nixpacks or a Dockerfile instead.

Does Railway actually stay cheaper than Heroku long-term?+

For small-to-medium apps, yes — usage-based billing means you pay for the RAM/CPU you actually consume instead of fixed per-dyno pricing, often 40-60% less than Heroku Basic or Standard dynos. At higher scale with heavy, consistent traffic, the gap narrows since usage-based pricing can approach or exceed Heroku's flat-rate Performance tiers, so it's worth estimating your actual resource usage before committing.