Your hosting options

A realtime app · database from a database service · growing traffic · up to about $25/month · start over

Top match App platform

Railway

≈$20/mo Pro

$20 minimum with higher resource limits and unlimited team seats.

Free option
Free: $1 of monthly usage credits, capped at 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB per service, one replica, and 3-day log history.
Why it fits
Full-stack apps and APIs where you want the app and its database running in minutes.
How deploys work
Connect a repo or image; Railway detects the build, deploys it, and adds databases with one click.
The tradeoff
Pure usage billing means the bill moves with your traffic — predictable only while the app is small.

Option 2 App platform

DigitalOcean App Platform

≈$24/mo Two 1 GiB containers

Horizontal scaling; database and extra transfer on top.

Free option
Free tier: 3 apps with static sites, 1 GiB of outbound transfer each per month. Extra static-site apps cost $3/month.
Why it fits
Apps that want git-push deploys inside a provider they can grow with.
How deploys work
Connect the Git repo or a container image; App Platform builds, deploys, and scales it.
The tradeoff
Weaker compute per dollar than a Droplet — the convenience premium is real.

Option 3 App platform

Fly.io Machines

≈$12/mo Two 1 GB Machines

Two machines for availability; databases and egress on top.

Why it fits
Dockerized apps that want low cost, fine control, or multi-region placement.
How deploys work
fly launch builds the image and deploys it; configuration lives in fly.toml and the flyctl CLI.
The tradeoff
You operate more of the stack yourself unless you pay for Managed Postgres.

Ranked by ease of deploy for your stack, then by monthly cost — never by commissions. Estimates come from hand-checked public prices; the linked provider pages show every number and its caveats.