Compare / Google Cloud Run vs Fly.io Machines
Google Cloud Run vs Fly.io Machines
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Google Cloud Run checked 2026-08-06, Fly.io checked 2026-08-06.
The short version
Google Cloud Run wins more of our comparison points, but Fly.io Machines still fits if dockerized apps that want low cost, fine control, or multi-region placement describes you.
Price Tie
Google Cloud Run costs less while you're starting out, but Fly.io Machines works out cheaper once traffic grows.
Ease Google Cloud Run
Google Cloud Run is easier to get running: run `gcloud run deploy --source .` — buildpacks containerize the app, or push any Docker image; GitHub continuous deployment is built in.
Control Fly.io Machines
Fly.io Machines gives you more control over the stack — the flip side of the convenience trade.
Free tier Google Cloud Run
Google Cloud Run has a free tier; Fly.io Machines doesn't.
Features Google Cloud Run
Google Cloud Run comes out ahead on 5 of the 15 features we track, versus 2.
What developers say about this matchup
We couldn't find a substantive first-person discussion comparing this exact pair. We leave the section empty instead of filling it with vendor marketing or generic SEO comparisons.
At a glance
| Google Cloud Run | Fly.io Machines | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Container apps with spiky or low traffic that want scale-to-zero economics and can manage billing discipline. | Dockerized apps that want low cost, fine control, or multi-region placement. |
| How deploys work | Run `gcloud run deploy --source .` — buildpacks containerize the app, or push any Docker image; GitHub continuous deployment is built in. | fly launch builds the image and deploys it; configuration lives in fly.toml and the flyctl CLI. |
| The tradeoff | The best free tier and autoscaling here, attached to a billing system with no hard cap and real horror stories. | You operate more of the stack yourself — especially the database. |
| Free tier | Always free: 2M requests, 180k vCPU-seconds, 360k GiB-seconds per month, plus a $300/90-day new-customer credit. | None |
What you'd realistically pay
| Project stage | Google Cloud Run | Fly.io Machines | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | Free Free tier — A scale-to-zero service with hobby traffic typically rounds to $0 — the always-free tier absorbs it. | ≈$3/mo shared-cpu-1x, 256 MB — About $2.02/month in Amsterdam if always on; less with scale-to-zero. | Google Cloud Run |
| Steady traffic | ≈$10/mo Pay-as-you-go + 1 warm instance — One min-instance (1 vCPU, 512 MiB at the idle rate) is ~$10/month; request costs on top are usually small. | ≈$6/mo shared-cpu-1x, 1 GB — About $5.92/month in Amsterdam, plus egress at $0.02/GB. | Fly.io Machines |
| Growing | ≈$58/mo Always-on + Cloud SQL — ~$50/month for an always-on 1 vCPU / 1 GiB service (instance-based billing) plus ~$7.67 for a db-f1-micro Cloud SQL instance. | ≈$12/mo Two 1 GB Machines — Two machines for availability; databases and egress on top. | Fly.io Machines |
Google Cloud Run pricing notes
- Egress: first 1 GiB/month free, then $0.12/GiB to NA/EU/Asia.
- Tier 2 regions cost more; committed-use discounts take ~17% off.
- The $300 new-customer credit runs 90 days and cannot produce a bill — the account closes instead of charging you.
Fly.io Machines pricing notes
- Billed per second only while Machines are started; scale-to-zero is natively supported.
- Egress: $0.02/GB in North America and Europe; more elsewhere.
Our ratings
Ease of use Google Cloud Run
Pricing clarity Fly.io Machines
Free tier Google Cloud Run
Scaling Google Cloud Run
Control Fly.io Machines
Feature by feature
Google Cloud Run wins 5, Fly.io Machines wins 2, with 8 even.
Deploy workflow
| Google Cloud Run | Fly.io Machines | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes Built-in continuous deployment from GitHub, or deploy from source with gcloud. | Partial No native git integration; the documented path is flyctl in GitHub Actions. |
| Preview deploys | Partial Every deploy creates a tagged revision you can hit directly and split traffic to — but no automatic PR previews. | Partial PR apps work via the official GitHub Action, not out of the box. |
| Official CLI | Yes `gcloud run` covers deploys, revisions, and traffic splits. | Yes flyctl does everything: launch, deploy, scale, ssh, logs. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes Shift traffic back to any previous revision instantly. | Partial Redeploy any previous image; no one-click dashboard rollback. |
Platform
| Google Cloud Run | Fly.io Machines | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Partial Domain mappings exist but Google steers production setups toward a load balancer, which adds cost and setup. | Yes Custom domains with free managed certificates. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | Partial Cloud CDN is available but requires fronting Cloud Run with a load balancer. | Partial Anycast routing sends users to the nearest region, but there is no static-asset CDN. |
| Serverless functions | Yes The whole platform is serverless; Cloud Run functions cover event-driven code. | No Machines are micro-VMs, not functions. |
| Docker containers | Yes Runs any container image — that is the product. | Yes A Docker image is the deployment unit. |
| SSH / shell access | No No servers to reach. | Yes fly ssh console opens a shell in any running Machine. |
| EU hosting region | Yes A dozen-plus EU regions, four of them at Tier 1 pricing. | Yes Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, London, and more. |
Runtime & operations
| Google Cloud Run | Fly.io Machines | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Yes Scales per request from zero to your max-instances setting. | Yes Machines autostart and autostop with traffic; scale counts per region. |
| Scale to zero | Yes Idle services cost nothing unless you set min-instances. | Yes Stopped Machines cost only their storage. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Cloud Scheduler triggers services; Cloud Run jobs handle batch work. | Partial Scheduled Machines run on fixed intervals; full cron needs a workaround. |
| Managed database | Yes Cloud SQL from ~$7.67/month (no SLA at that size); Firestore and AlloyDB nearby. | Partial Fly Postgres is automated-but-unmanaged; managed options come from partners like Supabase and Upstash. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Yes Cloud Logging, Monitoring, and request traces are built in. | Yes Built-in metrics (Grafana), live logs, and log shipping. |
Watch out for
Google Cloud Run
- There is no hard spend cap anywhere in Google Cloud — budgets only send alerts. The community horror stories ($4.6k on an idle setup, $18k against a $7 budget) are real.
- Min-instances are the classic trap: a warm instance bills around $10/month, and old revisions can silently keep their own min-instances.
- Egress costs $0.12/GiB after the first free GiB — heavy traffic gets expensive fast.
- Since March 2026 Google can automatically raise your spending-tier quotas, which amplifies leaked-API-key incidents.
Fly.io
- New pay-as-you-go organizations get no free allowance.
- Fly Postgres is explicitly unmanaged: automated but not a managed database service — backups and failover are your responsibility.
- Per-second compute plus $0.02/GB egress makes bills variable; prices differ by region.
Read the full reviews: Google Cloud Run and Fly.io. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.