Railway vs Buddy
Railway is a managed PaaS. Buddy is a CI/CD platform that also hosts apps on sandboxes, persistent VMs with Docker and a 50 GB disk. You can run the same app and its Postgres on both; the difference is who manages the database and how far the pipeline reaches.
Pick Buddy if you want a full VM with root, SSH and Docker, real pipelines (tests, approvals, deploys to more than one host) and short-lived OIDC credentials instead of stored cloud keys. Stay on Railway if you want backups, point-in-time recovery and HA for Postgres handled for you, or horizontal replicas across regions.
Side by side
Railway vs Buddy at a glance
| Railway | Buddy | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Managed PaaS: services, workers, cron, databases | CI/CD platform + sandboxes (persistent VMs) + Git hosting + domains |
| Billing | Plan ($5 Hobby, $20 Pro) + per-second usage | Plan (Free, Pro $29/mo) + usage from $0.00024 per CPU-minute or GB-minute |
| Free option | 30-day trial ($5 credit), then $1/mo of usage | Free plan with $1/mo usage credit |
| Compute unit | Service with replicas, up to 24 vCPU / 24 GB each on Pro | One VM per sandbox, from 1 CPU / 2 GB to 12 CPU / 24 GB |
| Postgres | One-click template on a volume; backups, PITR (about 4 weeks) and HA available | Self-run in Docker on the sandbox; snapshots, but no managed backups, PITR or HA |
| Disk | Yes: $0.15/GB-month | 50 GB persistent disk per sandbox |
| Root and SSH | No | Yes: passwordless sudo, SSH, any package |
| Sleep when idle | Optional: sleeps 5 to 10 min after the last outbound traffic | Optional timeout; wakes on the next request |
| CI/CD | Builds and deploys on push | Full pipelines: tests, approvals, deploys to any host |
| Deploy targets | Railway only | Sandboxes, Render, Fly.io, Kubernetes, VPS, AWS, Google Cloud, Azure |
| Preview environments | Yes: an environment per pull request | A sandbox per branch or PR, created by a pipeline |
Sources: Buddy pricing · Buddy sandboxes · Sandbox lifecycle · Railway pricing · Railway plans · Railway backups · Railway regions. Checked October 22, 2026.
Where Buddy wins
A machine, not a container
A sandbox is a VM with passwordless sudo, SSH, Docker and a 50 GB disk that survives restarts. Anything a Linux box can run, it runs, including a database next to the app.
One pipeline for every host
Buddy pipelines build, test and deploy to a sandbox or to any other host, so changing hosts later is a step change, not a new release process. They can sign in to AWS, Google Cloud and Azure with OIDC, so no long-lived cloud key sits in a variable.
Snapshots before risky changes
Take a snapshot of the whole sandbox, disk included, before an upgrade or a migration and restore it if something breaks.
Where Railway still wins
A database someone else runs
Railway's Postgres comes with scheduled backups, point-in-time recovery (about four weeks) and an HA option. On a Buddy sandbox Postgres is yours: you schedule the dumps, test the restores and handle upgrades.
Horizontal scale across regions
Railway runs replicas of a service, across regions if you want. A Buddy sandbox is one VM; you scale it by choosing a bigger size.
Moving from Railway to Buddy
- Rotate first: copy no secret from Railway as-is. Issue new database passwords and API keys and put only the new values on the new host.
- Create a sandbox, add your app and Postgres as Docker containers, and expose the app on an HTTP endpoint (TCP if a client must reach the database).
- Restore a
pg_dumpfrom Railway, then add a pipeline that dumps the database nightly to object storage; nothing does that for you. - Let a Buddy pipeline build and deploy on push, take a snapshot, point your custom domain at the sandbox and delete the Railway services.
Common questions
Railway vs Buddy: common questions
Can I run Postgres on Buddy?
Yes, as a container on a sandbox. The sandbox disk is persistent, so data survives restarts, and you can take snapshots. It is self-managed: Buddy has no managed Postgres with automatic backups, point-in-time recovery or failover, so you schedule and test backups yourself.
Is Buddy cheaper than Railway?
It depends on what you run. Both have a free plan with $1 of usage a month. Paid, Railway starts at $5 a month (Hobby) with $5 of usage included; Buddy Pro is $29 a month plus usage from $0.00024 per CPU-minute or GB-minute, and includes CI/CD pipelines that Railway does not offer.
Can I keep Railway and use Buddy only for CI/CD?
Yes. A Buddy pipeline can run your tests and then deploy to Railway with the Railway CLI, or deploy the same build to a second host so a Railway outage does not stop you shipping a fix.