Let’s explore how the two platforms overlap and what might be unique to each. Both target freelancers, agencies, and startups looking to simplify deployment and development workflows.
Table of contents
- TLDR
- Who is it for?
- Feature comparison
- Pricing comparison
- When to choose Diploi instead of Railway
- FAQ
- Considering migrating from Railway to Diploi?
- References
TLDR
- Railway provides a fully managed, Git-driven infrastructure platform that scales containerized services with minimal setup.
- Diploi provides fully managed hosting and integrated cloud development environments, with no setup required to start new applications from zero and deploy online.
- Pick Diploi when you want a ready-to-code cloud development workspace, instant app scaffolding, which is online right from the start. Ideal for rapid prototyping, hackathons, working on multiple projects without custom local setups, team collaboration, or fast onboarding for new team members and contractors.
- Pick Railway when you prefer a traditional Git-driven deployment model with per-service control, integrated managed databases and queues, and fine-grained scaling.
Diploi targets ease-of-use and speed, with remote IDEs and one-click deployment environments, while Railway offers a developer-friendly deployment platform similar to Render with broad flexibility and control.
Who is it for?
Both Railway and Diploi target developers, freelancers, agencies, and startups who want to focus on code rather than managing servers individually.
Railway is aimed at teams that need a straightforward hosting solution. It lets you provision infrastructure, where you develop locally, and when your project is ready, you can upload it to Railway by importing from GitHub, using the CLI, or by uploading a Docker Image. Railway’s tiered plans (including a free tier and $5/month hobby plan) make it accessible to solo developers, while paid plans ($20 Pro) add features like priority support and global regions. It’s a good fit if your project has multiple services (web frontends, APIs, workers, databases) and you want each as a separate deployable service.
Diploi, on the other hand, is meant for developers and teams that want to eliminate local setup entirely, to reduce context switching complexity. It not only abstracts infrastructure but also provides ready-to-use application scaffolds and built-in remote development environments. Every new Diploi project starts with a remote dev environment, which can be accessed with a built-in browser IDE or from any IDE using SSH, so developers and contractors can start coding immediately without npm installs or config.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Diploi | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment model | You create one environment that hosts all services and databases together in a single Kubernetes cluster. This monolithic setup is designed to reduce overhead and costs. | You create separate services for each component (frontend, backend, API, worker, database, etc.). Each service is its own instance on Railway’s platform. |
| CI/CD automation | Diploi creates a GitHub Action that, when you push to your GitHub repo, rebuilds your app’s container images and updates the live deployment when the build succeeds. | Railway automatically redeploys on Git commits for connected services. You link a GitHub repo, and Railway will build and deploy on each push. Using the CLI, is it possible to create custom CI/CD workflows. |
| Managed services | Diploi provides managed databases as part of any project hosted, but there isn’t a separate catalog of managed services like cron jobs, edge functions, workers, etc. In Diploi, these services can be run within a project by adding components to run these services, eg, using Bun to run cron jobs. | Railway offers a catalog of managed open-source databases (Postgres, MySQL, Redis, Mongo, etc.) and volume storage, all with built-in backups. It also supports running background jobs by scheduling a service with a cron trigger. |
| Development experience | Includes a built-in cloud development environment. Every Diploi project starts with a ready IDE (in-browser or via VS Code/Cursor/SSH), so developers can code without any local setup. Onboarding is much faster since developers do not need to configure their local environment for every project they will work on. | Railway does not support cloud development environments, but the deployment workflow is unintrusive and flexible for developers, by supporting GitHub and Docker Images as a way to update services. |
Pricing comparison
Diploi has a usage-based pricing model, and it depends on the size of the cluster your application uses, regardless of how many components and add-ons are hosted within the same cluster. You can have unlimited collaborators in a project, and use any amount of resources as you need, while only getting charged for the time that your deployments are online and the storage they require.
Railway is also priced based on usage, but with a minimum charge based on the tier plan you choose. Depending on the tier you choose, you can unlock computing, networking, and storage resources, along with increased team seats to collaborate on projects.
For a project, hosting a web application that uses FastAPI for the backend, Astro for the frontend and Postgres as the database, that uses 10gb of storage, a 2-core CPU, and 4gb ram minimum:
- Diploi, €19.5/month.
- Railway, requires a Pro subscription, which costs $20/month or in Euros, ~€17.32/month.
When to choose Diploi instead of Railway
Choose Diploi when you want smooth context switching between projects and if you work on multiple projects built with different frameworks and databases. For example, if you want a one-click staging-to-production pipeline and a ready-made workspace you can hand to a freelancer or colleague without any setup, then Diploi is the way to go. Using cloud development environments means that you can start coding immediately, and then deploy online instantly without having to configure servers or SSL certificates, as Diploi takes care of all the infrastructure configuration automatically.
Choose Railway when your team prefers a service-per-container architecture and more granular DevOps control over each service’s computing resources. Railway is ideal if you have an existing codebase and want to deploy each microservice or database as its own unit, possibly with Docker, CLI, or from GitHub. It also offers the ability to scale services within an application independently for more control over the performance of your app’s infrastructure.
FAQ
Can I connect existing databases?
Diploi: Yes. Diploi lets you add managed databases through its stack add-ons or by attaching external database instances to your components by adding credentials in your project’s environment variables. Railway: Yes. Railway allows you to provision built-in databases (Postgres, MySQL, etc.) as services, and you can also connect to external databases via environment variables.
Does Diploi support background workers similar to Railway?
Yes, but not as a standalone service. In a Diploi project, you can create background workers within your app’s stack by adding a dedicated component to run jobs, like Hono, Bun, Deno, or FastAPI. This way, you can have background job workers or cron processes where needed, but without extra charges since the jobs are running within the same cluster.
How does scaling compare?
Diploi handles scaling by using predefined cluster sizes. You pick a cluster (S, M, L, XL) and it runs at that size, and switching sizes is how you scale your app. Railway supports both vertical autoscaling (each service can scale up to the plan’s CPU/RAM limits) and manual horizontal scaling (by adding more replicas of a service).
Can I use both platforms?
Yes. Nothing prevents you from mixing platforms. For instance, you could develop in Diploi’s remote environment and deploy some services on Railway, or vice versa. Both platforms use standard networking, so you could even connect a Railway-managed database to an app on Diploi or have services on one platform talk to services on the other.
Considering migrating from Railway to Diploi?
If you’re using Railway but want to try Diploi (or migrate), we’d be happy to assist. You can reach out via our support channels (email or Discord) or book a demo to discuss migration steps and best practices.