Hosting · working at 10,000 users · rates as read 24 Sept 2026
On free tier, Railway does not publish it and Render is $ 0 /mo + compute (Hobby). On cheapest paid plan, Railway is $ 5 minimum usage (Hobby) and Render is $ 25 /mo + compute (Pro). On rate above what's included, Railway is $ 0.05 per GB for services (egress) and Render is 5 GB included per month then $0.15 per GB. StackTab sells neither of these and takes no referral fee on either: it scores them. Every figure was read off the named company's own page on or since 2026-09-18; the URLs and the dates are at the foot of this page, and a job re-fetches each one on a schedule and fails when a figure is no longer on the page it came from.
2 compared · 3 criteria, identical for every column · every competitor figure read off that company's own page · last verified 2026-09-18
| Service | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| RailwayContainers billed by the second, with a database next to them.verified 24 Sept 2026railway.com/pricing | $ | $ | $ |
| RenderPredictable instance sizes: the closest thing left to old Heroku.verified 24 Sept 2026render.com/pricing | $ | $ | $ |
- Sorted by the total at
- Containers billed by the second, with a database next to them.verified 24 Sept 2026railway.com/pricing
- 1,000 users
- $
2121 Hobby - 10,000 users
- $
3131 Hobby - 100,000 users
- $
128128 Hobby
- Predictable instance sizes: the closest thing left to old Heroku.verified 24 Sept 2026render.com/pricing
- 1,000 users
- $
2.252.25 Hobby - 10,000 users
- $
2929 Hobby - 100,000 users
- $
7575 Professional · drifted
| Criterion | Railway | Render |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Not publishedRailway publishes no free plan. The cheapest entry is a 30-day trial with $5 of credits, "then $1 per month". | $ 0 /mo + compute (Hobby)Free compute instances spin down when idle and cold-start on the next request. 5 GB of bandwidth included. |
| Cheapest paid plan | $ 5 minimum usage (Hobby)The $5 is a minimum spend that includes $5 of usage credit rather than a fee on top of usage. Pro is $ 20 minimum usage. | $ 25 /mo + compute (Pro)The plan fee is per user and the compute is separate: Starter $7/month, Standard $25/month, Pro $85/month, up to Pro Ultra $450/month. Scale is $ 499 /mo + compute. |
| Rate above what's included | $ 0.05 per GB for services (egress)Compute is billed by the second: $ 0.00000386 per GB/sec of memory and $ 0.00000772 per vCPU/sec. | 5 GB included per month then $0.15 per GBPersistent disks are $0.25/GB per month. The instance ladder is published in full, which is what makes a fixed-size deployment predictable here. |
“Not published” means that company does not state the figure on the page cited at the foot of this page. It is not a claim that no such figure exists. A company that publishes no limit most likely has none, but “most likely” is not a fact, and this table prints what was read rather than what was inferred.
- Free tier: what the vendor gives you at $0 a month, in its own words
- Rate above what's included: the per-unit or per-transaction rate the vendor publishes for usage beyond the plan: the figure you need to work out a bill before you commit to one
Railway does not state it on railway.com. Railway publishes no free plan. The cheapest entry is a 30-day trial with $5 of credits, "then $1 per month". Render: $ 0 /mo + compute (Hobby). Free compute instances spin down when idle and cold-start on the next request. 5 GB of bandwidth included. Read from railway.com and render.com on 2026-09-18. Free tier here means what the vendor gives you at $0 a month, in its own words.
Railway: $ 5 minimum usage (Hobby). The $5 is a minimum spend that includes $5 of usage credit rather than a fee on top of usage. Pro is $ 20 minimum usage. Render: $ 25 /mo + compute (Pro). The plan fee is per user and the compute is separate: Starter $7/month, Standard $25/month, Pro $85/month, up to Pro Ultra $450/month. Scale is $ 499 /mo + compute. Read from railway.com and render.com on 2026-09-18.
Railway: $ 0.05 per GB for services (egress). Compute is billed by the second: $ 0.00000386 per GB/sec of memory and $ 0.00000772 per vCPU/sec. Render: 5 GB included per month then $0.15 per GB. Persistent disks are $0.25/GB per month. The instance ladder is published in full, which is what makes a fixed-size deployment predictable here. Read from railway.com and render.com on 2026-09-18. Rate above what's included here means the per-unit or per-transaction rate the vendor publishes for usage beyond the plan: the figure you need to work out a bill before you commit to one.
Railway: You need a long-running process rather than a request handler: a queue worker, a websocket server, a cron that actually runs for ten minutes. Railway bills compute by the second, so an app that is busy in bursts costs what it used, and it will host the database next to it on the same bill. Render: You would rather pick an instance size than reason about a meter. Render publishes the whole compute ladder as fixed monthly prices: $7, $25, $85, $175, $225, $450: so the bill for a service you have sized is a number you can read off the page before you deploy it.
StackTab does not sell any of these and has nothing to gain from which one you choose: it scores them. Each case below is the one that option genuinely wins.
- Railway: You need a long-running process rather than a request handler: a queue worker, a websocket server, a cron that actually runs for ten minutes. Railway bills compute by the second, so an app that is busy in bursts costs what it used, and it will host the database next to it on the same bill.
- Render: You would rather pick an instance size than reason about a meter. Render publishes the whole compute ladder as fixed monthly prices: $7, $25, $85, $175, $225, $450: so the bill for a service you have sized is a number you can read off the page before you deploy it.
Prices and limits move, and a page quoting a stale one is worth less than a page quoting none. Every source is printed here so a reader can check it against the day they are reading this, and a job re-fetches each of these URLs on a schedule and fails when a figure above no longer appears on the page it came from.
- Railway: railway.com/pricing: Free tier, Cheapest paid plan, Rate above what's included. Read 2026-09-18.
- Render: render.com/pricing: Free tier, Cheapest paid plan, Rate above what's included. Read 2026-09-18.
Last verified 2026-09-18. https://stacktab.thecompound.tech/compare/railway-vs-render