Compare / Railway vs Scaleway Instances
Railway vs Scaleway Instances
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Railway checked 2026-08-06, Scaleway checked 2026-08-06.
The short version
Railway wins more of our comparison points, but Scaleway Instances still fits if eU projects that want real cloud ergonomics — hourly billing, CLI, Terraform, managed databases — without a US hyperscaler describes you.
Price Railway
Railway is cheaper at every stage we model — about $20/mo even for a growing project.
Ease Railway
Railway is easier to get running: connect a repo or image; Railway detects the build, deploys it, and adds databases with one click.
Control Scaleway Instances
Scaleway Instances gives you more control over the stack — the flip side of the convenience trade.
Free tier Railway
Railway has a free tier; Scaleway Instances doesn't.
Features Railway
Railway comes out ahead on 6 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
| Railway | Scaleway Instances | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Full-stack apps and APIs where you want the app and its database running in minutes. | EU projects that want real cloud ergonomics — hourly billing, CLI, Terraform, managed databases — without a US hyperscaler. |
| How deploys work | Connect a repo or image; Railway detects the build, deploys it, and adds databases with one click. | Spin up an instance from the console or the scw CLI, then manage it like any VPS; Terraform and cloud-init are first-class. |
| The tradeoff | Pure usage billing means the bill moves with your traffic — predictable only while the app is small. | À la carte pricing makes the real cost higher than the sticker, and account verification can be painful. |
| Free tier | Free: $1 of monthly usage credits, capped at 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB per service, one replica, and 3-day log history. | None |
What you'd realistically pay
Railway Scaleway Instances
| Project stage | Railway | Scaleway Instances | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | ≈$5/mo Hobby — The $5 minimum becomes usage credit; a small, mostly idle service usually fits inside it. | ≈€10.42/mo DEV1-S + IPv4 + 10 GB volume — ~€6.55 instance (2 shared vCPU, 2 GB RAM) + €2.92 IPv4 + ~€0.95 block storage. Ex-VAT, ~730h/month. | Railway |
| Steady traffic | ≈$10/mo Hobby + usage — Roughly a quarter vCPU and 512 MB always on; a small database adds a few dollars. | ≈€24.92/mo PLAY2-NANO + IPv4 + 20 GB volume — ~€20.10 instance (2 shared vCPU, 4 GB RAM) + €2.92 IPv4 + ~€1.90 block storage. | Railway |
| Growing | ≈$20/mo Pro — $20 minimum with higher resource limits and unlimited team seats. | ≈€45/mo PLAY2-MICRO + IPv4 + 20 GB volume — ~€40.20 instance (4 shared vCPU, 8 GB RAM) + €2.92 IPv4 + ~€1.90 block storage. | Railway |
Railway pricing notes
- Usage rates: about $20 per vCPU-month, $10 per GB of RAM-month, $0.15 per GB of volume storage, $0.05 per GB of egress — all metered per second.
- Postgres, MySQL, Redis, and other databases deploy as one-click services and bill through the same usage meters.
Scaleway Instances pricing notes
- Hourly billing (~730 h/month), ex-VAT, with no egress fees — bandwidth is an unmetered per-instance speed.
- Flexible IPv4 €0.004/h (~€2.92/month); IPv6 is free. Block Storage 5K is €0.000130/GB/h (~€0.095/GB/month).
- Savings Plans (12/36-month commitment) take up to 25% off compute.
- New Professional accounts with a payment method get €100 in credit.
Our ratings
Ease of use Railway
Pricing clarity Railway
Free tier Railway
Scaling Railway
Control Scaleway Instances
Feature by feature
Railway wins 6, Scaleway Instances wins 2, with 7 even.
Deploy workflow
| Railway | Scaleway Instances | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes Connect a GitHub repo; Railway detects the stack and deploys on push. | No Not on Instances — bring your own CI, or use Scaleway’s separate serverless products. |
| Preview deploys | Yes PR environments deploy a copy of every service in the project. | No Nothing built in. |
| Official CLI | Yes The railway CLI links local dev to project env vars and deploys. | Yes The scw CLI covers instances, volumes, IPs, and snapshots. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes Redeploy any previous deployment from the dashboard. | Partial Snapshots and images restore machines; no deploy-level rollback. |
Platform
| Railway | Scaleway Instances | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Custom domains with automatic TLS on all plans. | Yes Point DNS at the server; TLS is yours via certbot or a proxy. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | No No CDN; every byte is served from your service region and billed as egress. | Partial Edge Services adds a CDN in front of load balancers and object storage; nothing automatic on a bare instance. |
| Serverless functions | No Everything is a long-running service, not functions. | No Not on Instances — Scaleway sells separate Serverless Containers and Functions products. |
| Docker containers | Yes Deploy from a Dockerfile or a public/private image. | Yes Docker-ready images or install it yourself. |
| SSH / shell access | Partial railway ssh opens a shell inside the running container. | Yes Full root SSH. |
| EU hosting region | Yes EU (Amsterdam) region available alongside US and Asia. | Yes Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw, and Milan — EU-only by design. |
Runtime & operations
| Railway | Scaleway Instances | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Partial Vertical usage scales within plan limits; horizontal replicas exist but need Pro. | No Manual resizing on Instances; autoscaling lives in the serverless products. |
| Scale to zero | Yes App sleeping stops compute billing after 10 idle minutes. | Partial A fully powered-off (archived) instance stops compute billing, but IPs and volumes keep billing. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Any service can run on a cron schedule instead of continuously. | Yes Classic cron on the box. |
| Managed database | Yes One-click Postgres, MySQL, Redis, and Mongo billed through the same usage meters. | Yes Managed PostgreSQL/MySQL from ~€11.40/month plus storage; Redis and MongoDB too. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Yes Logs, CPU/RAM metrics, and usage graphs built into the dashboard. | Partial Cockpit collects instance metrics and logs into managed Grafana; app-level instrumentation is yours. |
Watch out for
Railway
- Usage billing has no hard cap — a busy or misbehaving app can outgrow any estimate.
- Services can sleep after 10 idle minutes to save money, but outbound database connections or telemetry can keep them awake, and the first request after sleep is slow.
- The $5 Hobby plan is limited to a single developer.
Scaleway
- List prices exclude storage and public IPv4: add ~€2.92/month for a flexible IPv4 and ~€0.095/GB/month for block storage.
- Scaleway raised prices across Stardust, PLAY2, PRO2, BASIC3, and storage on 1 June 2026.
- "Standby" bills as a running instance; only a full power-off (archive) stops compute billing — and IPs and volumes keep billing regardless.
- Automated KYC can freeze accounts (sometimes with servers running) until you re-verify with ID and selfie.
- The famous €0.43/month Stardust instances are chronically out of stock.
Read the full reviews: Railway and Scaleway. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.