vioscaleAI
Comparison

Heroku vs Railway

On the evidence we track, Railway leads this comparison with a composite score of 80/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Heroku full profile →Railway full profile →
Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
Heroku67
★Railway80
Score
vioscaleAI score
Heroku67 / 100medium · 73%
Railway80 / 100medium · 60%
Pricing
Free tier
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Model
Herokufreemium
Railwayfreemium
Price level
Herokuhigh
Railwaylow
Starting price
Heroku$500
Railway$5
Transparent
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Integrations
Count
Heroku6
Railway7
Security
Certifications
Heroku–
RailwaySOC 2, HIPAA
Disclosure policy
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Gdpr
Heroku–
Railway✓
Hipaa
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Iso27001
Heroku✓
Railway–
Pci
Heroku✓
Railway–
Soc2
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Trust center
Reliability
Sla pct
Heroku–
Railway99.99
Status page
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Market
Availability
Content
Faq
Heroku6 items
Railway6 items

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for paas & hosting. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Deploy
Git-push auto-deploy
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Deploy arbitrary container image
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Per-PR preview environments
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Build
Build system
HerokuBuildpacks
RailwayDockerfile
Runtime / language breadth
HerokuNode.js, Python, Ruby, Java, Go, Scala, PHP
RailwayMulti-language support via Railpack auto-detection and templates
Scale
Autoscaling
HerokuHorizontal
RailwayHorizontal
Deployment
Geographic reach
HerokuMulti-region
RailwayMulti-region
Hosting
HerokuCloud only
RailwayCloud + self-hosted
Data
Bundled managed data services
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Delivery
Built-in global CDN / edge
Heroku-
Railway✓
Custom domains + automatic TLS
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Ops
Env vars & secrets management
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Instant rollbacks
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Extensibility
CLI + deploy API
Heroku✓
Railway✓

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Heroku

A cloud-based application platform that enables developers to build, run, and scale web applications using managed infrastructure and integrated deployment tools. Supports multiple programming languages and frameworks with Git-based deployment.

Independently observed

Railway

Leader

A cloud deployment service that connects to your code repository, automatically builds and deploys applications, provides integrated databases and monitoring, and handles scaling and traffic management.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Heroku

from $500/moSubscriptionFree tier

From $7/month for hobby tier, with free tier available

  • freeFree
  • hobby$7/dyno/mo
  • standard-1x$25/dyno/mo
  • standard-2x$50/dyno/mo
  • performance$500/mo
as of verify ↗

Railway

Leader
from $5/moSubscriptionFree tier30-day trial

Free tier + Hobby ($5/month) + Pro ($20/month) + Enterprise (custom). Sandbox infrastructure metered at $50/GB RAM, $50/vCPU, $0.05/GB egress.

  • FreeFree
    • 30-day free trial with $5 credits
    • Up to 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB RAM per service
    • Community support
  • Hobby$5/month included credits
    • Up to 48 vCPU / 48 GB RAM per service
    • Up to 5 replicas at 8 vCPU / 8 GB RAM
    • Single developer workspace
    • 99.9% Availability Target
    • Global regions
    • +11 more
  • Pro$20/month included credits
    • Up to 1,000 vCPU / 1 TB RAM per service
    • Up to 42 replicas at 24 vCPU / 24 GB RAM
    • Railway Support
    • 99.99% Availability Target
    • Concurrent global regions
  • EnterpriseContact sales
    • 18-Month Audit Log Retention
    • Role-Based Access Control
    • HIPAA Business Associate Agreements
    • 99.999% Availability Target
    • Isolated Linux VMs for agents, builds, and untrusted code
    • +4 more
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Heroku✓
Railway✓
iOS
Heroku✗
Railway✓
Android
Heroku✗
Railway✓
CLI
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Heroku✓
Railway✓
Self-hosted
Heroku✗
Railway✓

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (1)
  • GitHub

Heroku

7 total - 6 not shared
  • Twilio
  • Salesforce
  • Travis CI
  • RabbitMQ
  • Apigee
  • Heroku Postgres
Independently observed

Railway

Leader
11 total - 10 not shared
  • Docker
  • Slack
  • Discord
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • MongoDB
  • Redis
  • Email
  • ChatGPT
  • Grok
Independently observed
Still deciding?

Heroku or Railway: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.