Railway free tier includes Free $0 per month. Start with a 30-day free trial with $5 credits, then $1 per month… Catalogue date August 2026. Compare with 28 alternatives in Cloud Hosting.
Subtypes in Cloud Hosting:container_app — you deploy an app or image and the platform keeps a process running for it. We read that on 2026-08-31 from https://railway.com/, where it says: “Railway is a full-stack cloud for deploying web apps, servers, databases, and more with automatic scaling, monitoring, and security.”How we use this.
Limits, pricing history, and 28 alternatives. Catalogue date August 2026. Last updated 2026-09-26.
Railway's free tier offers Free $0 per month. Start with a 30-day free trial with $5 credits, then $1 per month… We rate it stable. One recorded limit reduction narrowed the terms, on 2025-06-30. Best for cloud hosting workloads — 28 alternatives available.
The day we last read the vendor's page. The terms above come from our read of 2026-09-03, and we have read the page since, on 2026-09-18, without confirming them. We hold no confirmation of the terms we publish — the 2026-08-17 beside this date is not one we can source to a read that confirmed them.
Free Tier Details
Free $0 per month. Start with a 30-day free trial with $5 credits, then $1 per month. Up to 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB RAM per service. 0.5 GB of volume storage. 2 replicas during the free trial, then 1. Projects: 5 during trial, then 1
We read that on 2026-09-18 from https://railway.com/pricing, and our check recorded: the page names Railway as "railway" and states "$ 0".
When You'll Outgrow Railway's Free Tier
When your usage exceeds the free tier limits, you'll need to upgrade.
At that point, the 28 alternatives in Cloud Hosting are each listed with the free tier they offer, so you can compare what they give you against what you have outgrown.
Data correction - Railway's Free plan has no minimum charge. It costs $0 and gives $1 of free credit a month after the 30-day trial; our 2026-09-03 record read that as a new monthly minimum. Source ↗
Before: Recorded 2026-09-03 as: a monthly minimum charge after the trial, and projects reduced to 1
After: Free $0 per month: a 30-day trial with a one-time $5 credit, then $1 of free credit a month. No credit card required.
Retracted — this record was our error (2026-09-26). The free tier now has a $1/month minimum after the trial, and the number of projects is reduced to 1 after the trial. The free trial now offers 2 replicas instead of 1. Retracted 2026-09-26: Railway's Free plan has no minimum charge. After the trial it gives $1 of free credit a month; docs.railway.com/pricing/free-trial says "After 30 days passes or $5 is spent, the free trial reverts to the Free plan, which provides $1 of free credit per month." This record set our own earlier wording against Railway's pricing card, and the project count did not change. Source ↗
Before: Free plan: $0/month with one-time $5 credit (30-day trial), 1 vCPU, 0.5 GB RAM per service, 0.5 GB volume storage, 1 project, 3 services max ($1/month minimum after trial). Hobby plan: $5/month with $5 resource credit included, 48 vCPU, 48 GB RAM, 5 GB volume storage, up to 5 replicas at 8 vCPU/8 GB RAM each
After: Free $0 per month. 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. 2 replicas during the free trial, then 1. Projects: 5 during trial, then 1
Retracted — this record was our error (2026-09-26). Railway expanded free tier following $100M Series B. Trial plan now includes $5 in free credits/month, sufficient for small hobby projects. Removed credit card requirement for trial Retracted 2026-09-26: Railway's trial credit is a one-time $5, not $5 a month; the trial needed no credit card in January 2025 either; the Free plan's $1 a month first appears on railway.com/pricing between the Internet Archive's 2025-08-24 and 2025-09-03 captures; and Railway's $100M Series B was announced on 2026-01-22. Source ↗
Before: $5 free trial credit one-time, credit card required for Hobby plan
After: Trial: $5/month in free credits, no credit card needed. Hobby: $5/month + usage. Pro: $20/month per seat
Railway added a Free plan: after the 30-day trial, $1 of free credit a month. It first appears in the Internet Archive's 2025-09-03 capture; the 2025-08-24 capture has no Free plan. Source ↗
Before: Trial only: a one-time $5 credit that expires after 30 days
After: Free plan: $1 of free credit a month after the 30-day trial
Railway's trial credit now expires. The one-time $5 grant, which previously did not expire, lasts 30 days. The Internet Archive's 2025-06-26 capture still says the credits do not expire; the 2025-06-30 capture says they expire in 30 days. Source ↗
Before: Trial: a one-time grant of $5 in credits that do not expire
After: Trial: a one-time grant of $5 in credits that expire in 30 days
Recompute today's order yourself. The order above is a permutation seeded only on the UTC date and the query key — no vendor name, slug, id or offer field is an input. The list above is every one of the 3 entries in that order, not a prefix of it. The algorithm is published, so anyone can reproduce this page's order without asking us.
How Railway compares against every one of the 28 we list, not against a selection of them. A surface with room for every member of a tied set may rotate their order. A surface with room for only some of them names none of them, because which ones it named would be the claim, and a claim seeded on the date is not the one we serve tomorrow. How we decide this.
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Recompute today's order yourself. The order above is a permutation seeded only on the UTC date and the query key — no vendor name, slug, id or offer field is an input. The list above is every one of the 28 entries in that order, not a prefix of it. The algorithm is published, so anyone can reproduce this page's order without asking us.
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Yes, Railway offers a free tier: Free. Free $0 per month. 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. 2 replicas during the free trial, then 1. Project...
What is Railway's free tier?
Railway's free tier is called "Free". Free $0 per month. 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. 2 replicas during the free trial, then 1. Projects: 5 during trial, then 1
Is Railway's free tier reliable?
Railway's free tier is considered stable. One recorded limit reduction narrowed the terms, on 2025-06-30. See the pricing history below.
Is Railway's free tier good for production?
Railway's free tier can be suitable for small production workloads and side projects. We rate it stable and it offers Free $0 per month. Start with a 30-day free trial with $5 credits, then $1 per month…, so it's a reasonable starting point. One recorded limit reduction narrowed the terms, on 2025-06-30. Monitor your usage against the limits and have an upgrade plan ready.
What changed in Railway's pricing?
Railway has had 2 recorded pricing changes. Most recently: Railway added a Free plan: after the 30-day trial, $1 of free credit a month. It first appears in the Internet Archive's 2025-09-03 capture; the 2025-08-24 capture has no Free plan. Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20250903210249/https://railway.com/pricing (2025-09-03).
What are the best free alternatives to Railway?
We publish no ranking of these. Nothing we record measures popularity or generosity, so naming a best or a top few would be our preference rather than our data. We hold 28 free alternatives to Railway in Cloud Hosting, each listed above with its tier. Of those, 16 carry no recorded demerit and are indistinguishable under every signal we hold, so they are listed in an order that rotates daily, 11 are demoted with the reason named, 1 is listed last behind a stated gate. Our ranking rule is published at /criteria.
When will I outgrow Railway's free tier?
When your usage exceeds the free tier limits, you'll need to upgrade. When you outgrow the free tier, evaluate paid plans against alternatives — sometimes a competitor's free tier covers what you need.
What category is Railway in?
Railway is categorized under Cloud Hosting on AgentDeals. We list 28 other Cloud Hosting services alongside it, every one of them on this page with its free tier and the stability we publish for it.
If you are an agent reading this page
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