{"slug":"heroku-vs-railway)","title":"Heroku vs Railway","url":"https://www.aversusb.net/compare/heroku-vs-railway)","faqCount":5,"faqs":[{"question":"Which platform is cheaper for a small side project?","answer":"Railway is significantly cheaper for small projects. It offers $5/month in recurring credits and includes databases at no extra cost, making your effective starting cost near $0. Heroku's $12/month minimum plus separate database costs ($9+/month) starts at $21+/month total. For projects using minimal resources, Railway can cost 75% less."},{"question":"Does Heroku still have a free tier?","answer":"No. Heroku discontinued its free tier in November 2022 as part of efforts to eliminate cryptocurrency abuse and reduce infrastructure costs. All applications now require a paid plan starting at $12/month (Eco tier). Railway still offers $5/month in monthly credits, effectively providing a perpetual free tier for light usage."},{"question":"Which platform is better for production applications?","answer":"Heroku is generally better for mission-critical production applications due to its 99.99% uptime SLA (vs Railway's 99.9%), enterprise support options, 200+ certified add-ons for production services (monitoring, logging, security), and 22 years of proven deployment reliability. Railway is production-capable for non-critical workloads with acceptable downtime tolerance."},{"question":"Why does Railway have faster cold starts than Heroku?","answer":"Railway uses modern container orchestration with pre-warmed instances and optimized Docker configurations, achieving 2-5 second startups. Heroku's dynos use older virtualization technology and wake from deep hibernation, resulting in 30-60 second cold starts. This difference matters significantly for projects with infrequent traffic or serverless workloads."},{"question":"Can I easily migrate from Heroku to Railway?","answer":"Yes, migration is relatively straightforward. Both use Procfiles, environment variables, and support PostgreSQL/MySQL. The main steps involve: (1) exporting your database using pg_dump, (2) updating Git remote to Railway, (3) setting environment variables in Railway's dashboard, and (4) redeploying. Most developers complete this in 30 minutes. Heroku provides migration guides, though you'll save ~50% monthly costs by switching."}],"faqPageSchema":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://www.aversusb.net/compare/heroku-vs-railway)#faq","url":"https://www.aversusb.net/compare/heroku-vs-railway)","inLanguage":"en-US","name":"Heroku vs Railway — FAQ","description":"Frequently asked questions about Heroku vs Railway","dateModified":"2026-07-07T20:56:15.759Z","author":{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.aversusb.net/#organization","name":"A Versus B"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.aversusb.net/#organization","name":"A Versus B"},"isPartOf":{"@type":"Article","@id":"https://www.aversusb.net/compare/heroku-vs-railway)#article"},"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","speakable":{"@type":"SpeakableSpecification","cssSelector":["#faq",".faq-item"]},"mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Which platform is cheaper for a small side project?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Railway is significantly cheaper for small projects. It offers $5/month in recurring credits and includes databases at no extra cost, making your effective starting cost near $0. Heroku's $12/month minimum plus separate database costs ($9+/month) starts at $21+/month total. For projects using minimal resources, Railway can cost 75% less.","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://www.aversusb.net/compare/heroku-vs-railway)"}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Does Heroku still have a free tier?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No. Heroku discontinued its free tier in November 2022 as part of efforts to eliminate cryptocurrency abuse and reduce infrastructure costs. All applications now require a paid plan starting at $12/month (Eco tier). Railway still offers $5/month in monthly credits, effectively providing a perpetual free tier for light usage.","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://www.aversusb.net/compare/heroku-vs-railway)"}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Which platform is better for production applications?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Heroku is generally better for mission-critical production applications due to its 99.99% uptime SLA (vs Railway's 99.9%), enterprise support options, 200+ certified add-ons for production services (monitoring, logging, security), and 22 years of proven deployment reliability. Railway is production-capable for non-critical workloads with acceptable downtime tolerance.","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://www.aversusb.net/compare/heroku-vs-railway)"}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Why does Railway have faster cold starts than Heroku?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Railway uses modern container orchestration with pre-warmed instances and optimized Docker configurations, achieving 2-5 second startups. Heroku's dynos use older virtualization technology and wake from deep hibernation, resulting in 30-60 second cold starts. This difference matters significantly for projects with infrequent traffic or serverless workloads.","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://www.aversusb.net/compare/heroku-vs-railway)"}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Can I easily migrate from Heroku to Railway?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes, migration is relatively straightforward. Both use Procfiles, environment variables, and support PostgreSQL/MySQL. The main steps involve: (1) exporting your database using pg_dump, (2) updating Git remote to Railway, (3) setting environment variables in Railway's dashboard, and (4) redeploying. Most developers complete this in 30 minutes. Heroku provides migration guides, though you'll save ~50% monthly costs by switching.","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://www.aversusb.net/compare/heroku-vs-railway)"}}]}}