# Render vs Fly.io

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/render-vs-fly-io/

Every value below is read from Render's and Fly.io's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Render | Fly.io |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Kind of free offer | Free tier | Free trial |
| What the free plan includes | Free instances of web services, Render Postgres and Key Value, plus static sites at no charge. Free instances carry documented limitations. | Two hours of machine runtime or seven days of access, whichever runs out first, before a payment method is required. |
| Credit card to start | No — Free services run without one until the workspace's included bandwidth or pipeline minutes run out. | No — Apps stop when the trial's 2 machine-hours or 7 days run out, whichever comes first, until a card is added. |
| When the free offer ends | Free Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation, with a 14-day grace period to upgrade to a paid plan. | 7 days, or when the trial's included resources run out — whichever comes first. |
| Pricing model | The Hobby plan does not have a monthly fee, so you only pay for usage. | Usage-based, no compute plan tiers; billing is pro-rated for the time resources are provisioned. |
| When you exceed a cap | Pipeline minutes: overage is auto-purchased, but with no payment method or once the monthly spend limit is reached Render stops running pipeline tasks, builds included. | No plan cap to exceed — Fly bills per second for provisioned resources. The only documented enforcement is unspecified automated scaling limits, which surface as an error message (platform-wide, all plans) |
| Memory (entry plan) | 512 MB RAM (with 0.5 CPU) on the 0.5c-512mb instance type, the cheapest paid web service compute plan. | 256 MB on shared-cpu-1x, the cheapest Machine at $1.94/month in Ashburn (iad), the region the pricing table shows by default. |
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported |
| Git deployment | Supported | Limited |
| Docker deployment | Supported | Supported |
| Scheduled jobs | Supported | Limited |
| Persistent processes | Supported | Supported — A stopped or suspended Machine still bills for its root filesystem at $0.15 per GB per month. |
| Persistent storage | Supported | Supported |
| Managed databases | Supported | Supported |
| Edge network | Supported | Limited |
| Scales to zero | Supported | Supported |
| Autoscaling | Limited — Requires a Pro workspace plan or higher; scales on CPU or memory utilisation targets. | Limited — Two forms: autostop/autostart of existing Machines, and metrics-based autoscaling. |
| Regions | Oregon, USA; Ohio, USA; Virginia, USA; Frankfurt, Germany; Singapore | 17 regions |
| Support on entry paid plan | Chat support, from the free Hobby plan upward. Professional ($25/month plus compute) adds seats, bandwidth and features but no separate support tier. | Community support is free. Paid support is a separate subscription on top of compute, not a plan tier: Standard $29/month, Premium $199/month. |
| Private networking / VPC | Intuitive hosting and private networking for web services , Postgres databases , cron jobs , workflows , static sites , background jobs , key value stores , private services , WebSockets , edge caches , isolated environments , | No Terraform, no VPC configurations, no IAM: apps talk directly to each other on private networks with zero configuration . |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- Render: Yes ([source](https://render.com/docs/free))
- Fly.io: No ([source](https://fly.io/docs/about/free-trial/))
- Lean: 78% Render / 22% Fly.io — whether it is offered at all. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Kind of free offer

- Render: Free tier ([source](https://render.com/docs/free))
- Fly.io: Free trial ([source](https://fly.io/docs/about/free-trial/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### What the free plan includes

- Render: Free instances of web services, Render Postgres and Key Value, plus static sites at no charge. Free instances carry documented limitations. ([source](https://render.com/docs/free))
- Fly.io: Two hours of machine runtime or seven days of access, whichever runs out first, before a payment method is required. ([source](https://fly.io/docs/about/free-trial/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### When the free offer ends

- Render: Free Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation, with a 14-day grace period to upgrade to a paid plan. ([source](https://render.com/docs/free))
- Fly.io: 7 days, or when the trial's included resources run out — whichever comes first. ([source](https://fly.io/docs/about/free-trial/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Pricing model

- Render: The Hobby plan does not have a monthly fee, so you only pay for usage. ([source](https://render.com/docs/new-workspace-plans))
- Fly.io: Usage-based, no compute plan tiers; billing is pro-rated for the time resources are provisioned. ([source](https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### When you exceed a cap

- Render: Pipeline minutes: overage is auto-purchased, but with no payment method or once the monthly spend limit is reached Render stops running pipeline tasks, builds included. ([source](https://render.com/docs/build-pipeline))
- Fly.io: No plan cap to exceed — Fly bills per second for provisioned resources. The only documented enforcement is unspecified automated scaling limits, which surface as an error message (platform-wide, all plans) ([source](https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Memory (entry plan)

- Render: 512 MB RAM (with 0.5 CPU) on the 0.5c-512mb instance type, the cheapest paid web service compute plan. ([source](https://render.com/docs/compute-plans))
- Fly.io: 256 MB on shared-cpu-1x, the cheapest Machine at $1.94/month in Ashburn (iad), the region the pricing table shows by default. ([source](https://docs.fly.io/about/pricing/))
- Lean: 67% Render / 33% Fly.io — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Git deployment

- Render: Supported ([source](https://render.com/docs/github))
- Fly.io: Limited ([source](https://fly.io/docs/launch/continuous-deployment-with-github-actions/))
- Lean: 64% Render / 36% Fly.io — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Scheduled jobs

- Render: Supported ([source](https://render.com/docs/cronjobs))
- Fly.io: Limited ([source](https://fly.io/docs/machines/flyctl/fly-machine-run/))
- Lean: 64% Render / 36% Fly.io — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Edge network

- Render: Supported ([source](https://render.com/docs/static-sites))
- Fly.io: Limited ([source](https://fly.io/docs/reference/architecture/))
- Lean: 64% Render / 36% Fly.io — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Regions

- Render: Oregon, USA; Ohio, USA; Virginia, USA; Frankfurt, Germany; Singapore ([source](https://render.com/docs/regions))
- Fly.io: 17 regions ([source](https://docs.fly.io/reference/regions/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Support on entry paid plan

- Render: Chat support, from the free Hobby plan upward. Professional ($25/month plus compute) adds seats, bandwidth and features but no separate support tier. ([source](https://render.com/pricing))
- Fly.io: Community support is free. Paid support is a separate subscription on top of compute, not a plan tier: Standard $29/month, Premium $199/month. ([source](https://fly.io/pricing))
- Lean: 64% Render / 36% Fly.io — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Private networking / VPC

- Render: Intuitive hosting and private networking for web services , Postgres databases , cron jobs , workflows , static sites , background jobs , key value stores , private services , WebSockets , edge caches , isolated environments , ([source](https://render.com/))
- Fly.io: No Terraform, no VPC configurations, no IAM: apps talk directly to each other on private networks with zero configuration . ([source](https://fly.io/security/))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

## Which should you choose?

Pick Render if Workloads that need real background workers and persistent processes alongside web services, deployed from a repository or a Dockerfile. Managed Postgres and static sites run on the same platform.

Pick Fly.io if Workloads that ship as Docker images and need placement in particular regions. Billing is purely usage-based with no plan tiers, which suits spiky or region-pinned traffic better than a flat monthly fee.

Consider something else: Render — Free web services spin down after 15 minutes without traffic, which makes the free tier unsuitable for anything that must answer immediately.

Consider something else: Fly.io — You want a predictable flat bill rather than charges that track the resources provisioned for each app.

## Documented by only one

One side documents these and the other does not. An absence is a missing source, not a stated "no" — except where a line says the other page was READ on a date and does not mention it, which is a sourced observation and the only one-sided case this site leans on.

- Egress over allowance: Fly.io: Egress to the public internet is $0.02/GB in North America and Europe, $0.04/GB in Asia Pacific, Oceania and South America, and $0.12/GB in Africa and India.
- Storage (entry plan): Render: No persistent disk is included on any instance type, including the entry `0.5c-512mb` plan; services run on an ephemeral filesystem unless a persistent disk is attached separately
- Sites or apps included: Render: 25 total services on the Hobby workspace plan (Render's entry workspace tier, compute billed separately); also limited to a single team member
- Monthly visits cap: Render: No request-count cap is published; traffic is capped by outbound bandwidth, 5 GB/month included on Hobby and 25 GB on Pro.
- Included bandwidth: Render: Hobby: 5 GB; Pro: 25 GB; Scale: 1 TB; Enterprise: Custom
- File, inode or volume limit: Fly.io: 8 GB rootfs (deployed image) limit per Machine, platform-wide on all plans; exceeding it fails the image push at deploy time
- Build allowance: Render: 500 build-pipeline minutes a month on Hobby, 1,000 on Pro, 5,000 on Scale. Minutes, not builds.
- Concurrent builds: Render: One active build per service, platform-wide on all plans; a new build cancels the in-progress one for that service
- CPU time limit: Fly.io: Platform-wide, per Machine size: shared vCPUs get a 5ms CPU quota per 80ms period (6.25%); performance vCPUs get the full 80ms. Quotas are shared across a Machine's vCPUs, and tasks are throttled for the rest of the period once the quota is reached.
- Streaming response limit: Fly.io: No duration or size ceiling documented. Streaming works, but Fly Proxy buffers responses before compressing them, so progressive server-side rendering needs Content-Encoding: none set on those responses.
- Containers: Render: Supported
- Uptime SLA: Render: Enterprise only, and custom-priced. Hobby, Professional and Organization publish no uptime SLA, and no percentage is given for the Enterprise one.
- Audit logs: Render: Built-in audit logging and monitoring for platform events.
  - Fly.io: not stated on https://fly.io/security/, read 2026-09-21. Corrections: https://inetgeek.com/contact/
  - Lean: 78% Render / 22% Fly.io — documented, against a vendor page that does not state it (checked 2026-09-21).
- Response time commitment: Fly.io: 36-hour first response on Standard, the cheapest paid support plan at $29/month.
- HIPAA: Render: Meet SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and GDPR requirements without overhead.
  - Fly.io: not stated on https://fly.io/security/, read 2026-09-21. Corrections: https://inetgeek.com/contact/
  - Lean: 78% Render / 22% Fly.io — documented, against a vendor page that does not state it (checked 2026-09-21).
- GDPR / data residency: Render: Meet SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and GDPR requirements without overhead.
  - Fly.io: not stated on https://fly.io/security/, read 2026-09-21. Corrections: https://inetgeek.com/contact/
  - Lean: 78% Render / 22% Fly.io — documented, against a vendor page that does not state it (checked 2026-09-21).

## Questions this comparison answers

**Free tier: Render or Fly.io?**

Render: Yes
Fly.io: No

**When you exceed a cap: Render or Fly.io?**

Render: Pipeline minutes: overage is auto-purchased, but with no payment method or once the monthly spend limit is reached Render stops running pipeline tasks, builds included.
Fly.io: No plan cap to exceed — Fly bills per second for provisioned resources. The only documented enforcement is unspecified automated scaling limits, which surface as an error message (platform-wide, all plans)

**Should I choose Render or Fly.io?**

Pick Render if Workloads that need real background workers and persistent processes alongside web services, deployed from a repository or a Dockerfile. Managed Postgres and static sites run on the same platform.
Pick Fly.io if Workloads that ship as Docker images and need placement in particular regions. Billing is purely usage-based with no plan tiers, which suits spiky or region-pinned traffic better than a flat monthly fee.