DigitalOcean App Platform vs Railway

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of DigitalOcean App Platform and Railway built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Updated September 202632 criteria comparedSources last checked 14 September 2026

The short answer

Choose DigitalOcean App Platform if…

Apps deployed from a Git repository or a container image where a flat per-container price is easier to reason about than usage metering — $5 a month buys 1 shared vCPU, 512 MiB and 50 GiB of bandwidth.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose Railway if…

Teams that want a plan fee which doubles as usage credit, and deploy services straight from a Dockerfile without managing servers. The $5 Hobby fee comes back as $5 of resource usage.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

DigitalOcean App Platform: The free tier covers static sites only, three apps with no running service, and autoscaling is listed only against the dedicated container sizes — a small service scales by hand or not at all.
Railway: You need to run in a region outside California, Virginia, Amsterdam or Singapore.

6 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit DigitalOcean App Platform documentation Visit Railway documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

Criterion	DigitalOcean App Platform	Railway
Pricing
Free tier	Yes	Yes
What the free plan includes	Up to three apps that use only static site components. Anything with a running service falls outside the free tier.	A $0 plan alongside Hobby at $5 and Pro at $20. Deployment images on the free and trial tier are retained 24 hours, against 72 on Hobby.
Entry paid plan	$5.00 per month for the smallest container: 1 shared vCPU, 512 MiB of RAM and 50 GiB of bandwidth.	$5 / month (Hobby)
Limits
Memory (entry plan)	512 MiB on the $5.00 container, the cheapest paid size; 1 GiB from $10.00.	48 GB on Hobby ($5/month) — but that is a ceiling, not an allocation. Railway's table states the figure is a maximum including replica multiplication, so it is 8 GB across each of up to 6 replicas, and memory is billed at $10 per GB per month on top of the $5 fee. Recorded without a magnitude because a cap you pay for is not comparable with an allowance you are given.
Infrastructure
Autoscaling	Limited	Limited
Regions	Thirteen regions: NYC, AMS, SFO, SGP, LON, FRA, TOR, BLR, SYD, ATL, RIC, MKC and MEM. The availability table marks dynamic and static-site components separately, but those marks are images, so which app type is offered where is not readable as text.	4 regions: California, Virginia, Amsterdam, Singapore
Uptime SLA	99.95% monthly uptime, promised separately for each App Platform App Component Instance rather than for the account. Below it, service credits run 10%, 30% and upward as the month gets worse.	Published as availability targets rather than a contractual SLA: 99.9% on Hobby, 99.99% on Pro, 99.999% on Enterprise, which also adds support SLOs.
Support
Support on entry paid plan	The DigitalOcean account-level support plans, not an App Platform product: free ticket-based support 24/7 for everyone, then Developer $24/month, Standard $99/month with live chat, Premium $999/month with a dedicated Slack channel.	Community support on Trial and on Hobby, the entry paid plan. Pro gets "Railway support"; Enterprise adds support SLOs.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

What the free plan includes

DigitalOcean App Platform: Up to three apps that use only static site components. Anything with a running service falls outside the free tier.
Railway: A $0 plan alongside Hobby at $5 and Pro at $20. Deployment images on the free and trial tier are retained 24 hours, against 72 on Hobby.

Sources (2) →

App Platform Pricing — DigitalOcean Documentation ↗
“the free tier includes: deploying up to three apps that use only static site components.”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs
Railway Plans ↗
“Plan Price Free $0 / month Hobby $5 / month Pro $20 / month Enterprise Custom [...] Plan Policy Free / Trial 24 hours Hobby 72 hours”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs

Entry paid plan

DigitalOcean App Platform: $5.00 per month for the smallest container: 1 shared vCPU, 512 MiB of RAM and 50 GiB of bandwidth.
Railway: $5 / month (Hobby)

Sources (2) →

App Platform Pricing — DigitalOcean Documentation ↗
“the table below shows monthly pricing per container and available container sizes. api/cli slug cpus ram bandwidth allowance price manual scaling auto scaling apps-s-1vcpu-0.5gb 1 shared 512 mib 50 gib per month $5.00 per month no no”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs
Plans — Railway Docs ↗
“Plan Price Free $0 / month Hobby $5 / month Pro $20 / month Enterprise Custom”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing

Memory (entry plan)

DigitalOcean App Platform: 512 MiB on the $5.00 container, the cheapest paid size; 1 GiB from $10.00.
Railway: 48 GB on Hobby ($5/month) — but that is a ceiling, not an allocation. Railway's table states the figure is a maximum including replica multiplication, so it is 8 GB across each of up to 6 replicas, and memory is billed at $10 per GB per month on top of the $5 fee. Recorded without a magnitude because a cap you pay for is not comparable with an allowance you are given.

Sources (2) →

App Platform Pricing — DigitalOcean Documentation ↗
“apps-s-1vcpu-0.5gb 1 shared 512 mib 50 gib per month $5.00 per month no no apps-s-1vcpu-1gb-fixed 1 shared 1 gib 100 gib per month $10.00 per month no no”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs
Plans — Railway Docs ↗
“Plan Replicas RAM CPU Ephemeral Storage Volume Storage Image Size [...] Hobby 6 48 GB 48 vCPU 100 GB 5 GB 100 GB [...] Note that these are maximum values and include replica multiplication. [...] RAM $10 / GB / month”
Read 2026-09-07 · official pricing

Regions

DigitalOcean App Platform

Thirteen regions: NYC, AMS, SFO, SGP, LON, FRA, TOR, BLR, SYD, ATL, RIC, MKC and MEM. The availability table marks dynamic and static-site components separately, but those marks are images, so which app type is offered where is not readable as text.

Railway

4 regions: California, Virginia, Amsterdam, Singapore

Sources (2) →

App Platform Availability — DigitalOcean Documentation ↗
“App Platform is a fully managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that deploys applications from Git repositories or container images. [...] App Type NYC AMS SFO SGP LON FRA TOR BLR SYD ATL RIC MKC MEM Dynamic Static Site”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs
Regions — Railway Docs ↗
“Name Location Region Identifier US West Metal California, USA us-west2 US East Metal Virginia, USA us-east4-eqdc4a EU West Metal Amsterdam, Netherlands europe-west4-drams3a Southeast Asia Metal Singapore asia-southeast1-eqsg3a”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs

Uptime SLA

DigitalOcean App Platform

99.95% monthly uptime, promised separately for each App Platform App Component Instance rather than for the account. Below it, service credits run 10%, 30% and upward as the month gets worse.

Railway

Published as availability targets rather than a contractual SLA: 99.9% on Hobby, 99.99% on Pro, 99.999% on Enterprise, which also adds support SLOs.

Sources (2) →

App Platform SLA — DigitalOcean ↗
“applies separately to each App Platform App Component Instance associated with your Account (each an "App Platform ACI"). [...] DigitalOcean will use commercially reasonable efforts to provide a Monthly Uptime Percentage of 99.95% for each App Platform ACI.”
Read 2026-09-14 · official site
Railway Pricing ↗
“single developer workspace community support 99.9% availability target 7-day log history [...] unlimited workspace seats included railway support 99.99% availability target 30-day log history”
Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing

Support on entry paid plan

DigitalOcean App Platform: The DigitalOcean account-level support plans, not an App Platform product: free ticket-based support 24/7 for everyone, then Developer $24/month, Standard $99/month with live chat, Premium $999/month with a dedicated Slack channel.
Railway: Community support on Trial and on Hobby, the entry paid plan. Pro gets "Railway support"; Enterprise adds support SLOs.

Sources (2) →

Support Plans — DigitalOcean Documentation ↗
“DigitalOcean provides free ticket-based support to all customers, accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We also offer paid support plans with quicker response times, live chat, access to Solution Architects, and more. [...] Support Plan Starter Developer Standard Premium Price Free $24.00 per month $99.00 per month $999.00 per month”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs
Railway Pricing ↗
“up to 5 GB storage single developer workspace Community support 99.9% availability target [...] unlimited workspace seats included Railway support 99.99% availability target”
Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing

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03.

Documented by only one.

These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.

Kind of free offerRailway: Free tier

Pricing modelRailway: A base subscription fee that goes towards usage, with the plan's own credit included; anything beyond the credit is billed as resource usage.

Egress over allowanceRailway: $0.05 / GB

When you exceed a capRailway: Billed automatically: on the Hobby plan ($5/month, includes $5 of resource usage) usage above the included amount is charged as a delta on top of the subscription — no throttling or suspension is documented

Storage (entry plan)Railway: 0.5 GB of volume storage on the Free plan and up to 5 GB on Hobby ($5/month); volume storage is billed on usage rather than included.

Sites or apps includedRailway: 50 projects and 50 services per project on Hobby; Pro raises both to 100 and Enterprise is unlimited.

Monthly visits capRailway: No monthly visit or bandwidth cap is published. Rate limits are platform-wide: about 11,000 HTTP requests per second to a domain, and 10,000 concurrent connections.

Included bandwidthDigitalOcean App Platform: 50 GiB a month on the $5.00 container, rising with size to 900 GiB on the largest dedicated one.

Max request durationRailway: 15 minutes while data keeps transferring; closed after 5 minutes with no data transferred. Websocket connections are exempt and can stay open indefinitely.

Streaming response limitRailway: Platform-wide: an HTTP request may run up to 15 minutes while data keeps transferring, and is closed after 5 minutes with none. Idle HTTP/1.1 connections close after 60 seconds between requests. WebSocket connections are exempt. Railway documents the connection's duration here, not how the response is delivered.

Managed connection poolingRailway: Supported

Git deploymentRailway: Supported

Docker deploymentRailway: Supported

Scheduled jobsRailway: Supported

Persistent processesRailway: Supported

Persistent storageRailway: Supported

Managed databasesRailway: Limited

Edge networkRailway: Supported

Scales to zeroRailway: Limited — Serverless sleeps an idle service, but a slept service still holds a slot and is de-prioritised.

Response time commitmentDigitalOcean App Platform: Under 8 hours on Developer ($24/month), the cheapest paid support plan; under 24 hours free, under 2 hours on Standard, under 30 minutes on Premium. Account-level and not severity-based.

SOC 2Railway: SOC 2 Type 2 and SOC 3 reports available via Railway's Trust Center.

HIPAARailway: Listed under Compliance certifications, with a dedicated report available.

GDPR / data residencyRailway: Listed in the Trust Center's Compliance section.

Encryption at restRailway: Documented as a Data Security feature.

04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: DigitalOcean App Platform or Railway?

DigitalOcean App Platform: $5.00 per month for the smallest container: 1 shared vCPU, 512 MiB of RAM and 50 GiB of bandwidth.

Railway: $5 / month (Hobby)

Should I choose DigitalOcean App Platform or Railway?

Pick DigitalOcean App Platform if Apps deployed from a Git repository or a container image where a flat per-container price is easier to reason about than usage metering — $5 a month buys 1 shared vCPU, 512 MiB and 50 GiB of bandwidth.

Pick Railway if Teams that want a plan fee which doubles as usage credit, and deploy services straight from a Dockerfile without managing servers. The $5 Hobby fee comes back as $5 of resource usage.

Provider pages

DigitalOcean App PlatformManaged platform that builds and runs apps from a Git repository or a container image, with per-container pricing and a free tier for static sites.RailwayApplication platform that builds services from a repository or Dockerfile and bills plan fees that include usage credits.

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