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Railway vs Dokku
Railway vs Dokku
A side-by-side look at Railway (the paid SaaS) and Dokku (the open source alternative). Use this page to decide if the switch fits your team and workflow.
| Railway | Dokku | |
|---|---|---|
| Tagline | Developer-friendly platform to deploy any stack from Git. | Self-hosted mini-Heroku on a single server. |
| License | Proprietary SaaS | MIT |
| Pricing | $5/month starter; usage-based billing on top. | Free to self-host |
| Self-host option | No | Yes — difficulty 2/5 |
| Hosted cloud available | Yes (only option) | No |
| Desktop apps | Varies by product | Web only |
| Mobile apps | Official apps typically available | None official |
Ad slot — between tables
Best for
Minimal-ops teams happy with Heroku-style buildpacks and a CLI-first workflow.
Dokku strengths
- Deploy via git push, just like Heroku.
- Works on any Linux VPS.
- Plugin ecosystem for databases, SSL, etc.
Dokku weaknesses
- Single-host — limited scaling story.
- Requires Linux sysadmin comfort.
- UI is CLI-first.
What's the catch with Railway?
- Usage pricing can surprise on memory-hungry workloads.
- Removed a generous free tier for new accounts in 2023.
- Smaller ecosystem than Heroku or Render for one-click add-ons.
Still unsure?
Check the full list of alternatives to Railway: see Railway alternatives, or learn more about Dokku on its project page.
Recommended reading
When self-hosting goes wrong: seven failure modes and how to avoid them
An honest retrospective on the ways self-hosted setups break — not in theory, but in practice — and the small habits that prevent most of them.
Will the open source project you depend on still exist in three years?
Bus factor, maintainer burnout, funding models, and the signals that separate OSS projects that survive from those that quietly decay.
From SaaS to self-hosted: a 30-day migration playbook
A week-by-week plan to move one service off SaaS and onto your own server without breaking your team's workflow.