DevLyft Sign in Create account
PlatformComparePricingDocsTeamSign inCreate account

DevLyft vs Render, Railway and Heroku

All four will run your container. DevLyft's difference is the choice underneath it: shared compute billed per second, or a whole dedicated node at a fixed price, picked per environment, with no plan tiers. Here is how the prices line up, where the others are ahead, and how to move a service over.

Competitor prices checked 20 October 2026 from their public pricing pages. Check before you decide.

Price at the same size

Monthly cost of one always-on web service, at list price. Plan fees are shown separately because they change the total.

SizeDevLyftRenderRailwayHeroku
Nano: 0.125 vCPU · 256 MB $3.43shared, always on, no plan fee $7no smaller paid size; the Free instance has usage limits $5usage is about $5, the Hobby plan minimum is $5 $5Eco dyno, 512 MB, sleeps after 30 min idle
0.5 vCPU · 512 MB $8.69shared, per second $7Starter instance $15usage, per second $7Basic dyno, 512 MB, shared CPU
1 vCPU · 2 GB $27.44shared $25Standard, 1 CPU / 2 GB $40usage $50+no exact match; Standard-2X is 1 GB
2 vCPU · 4 GB $54.88 sharedor $67.38 for a whole dedicated node $85Pro, 2 CPU / 4 GB $80usage $250nearest: Performance-M, 2.5 GB
Plan fee None Hobby $0, Pro $25/mo, Scale $499/mo per workspace Hobby $5/mo or Pro $20/mo, counted toward usage None
Egress $0.05/GB 5 to 25 GB included, then $0.15/GB $0.05/GB Not listed on the pricing page

DevLyft rates: $7.30 per vCPU and $10.07 per GB a month on shared compute, 730 hours a month. Render and Heroku sell fixed instance sizes, so the closest size is shown. Railway also bills per second at about $20 per vCPU and $10 per GB a month. At Nano size DevLyft is the cheapest at $3.43, with no plan fee and no sleeping, against Railway's $5 Hobby minimum and Heroku's $5 Eco dyno, which sleeps when idle. At 0.5 and 1 vCPU, Render's fixed sizes are slightly cheaper, and Heroku's are too at 0.5 vCPU. At 2 vCPU, DevLyft is the cheapest of the four.

Isolated compute and features

DevLyftRenderRailwayHeroku
Single-tenant machine Self-service2 vCPU / 4 GB node $67.38, 4 vCPU / 8 GB $146.00 Not listednetwork-isolated environments on Pro and up Enterprise onlydedicated VMs, custom pricing YesPerformance dynos from $250/mo
Shared and isolated in one project Per environmentoverride per deploy Per service instance typen/aPer dyno type
Billing granularity Per secondProrated to the secondPer secondNot stated on the pricing page
Deploy a Docker image YesYesYesYes
Deploy from git Coming soonGitHub Actions, with the DevLyft CLI YesYesYes
Managed databases Coming soonuntil then, bring your own and connect with a secret Postgres, Key ValueYesPostgres, Key-Value Store
Autoscaling Coming soonset replicas by hand today YesReplicas by planOn Performance dynos
Free to try Free to sign up; card added at your first deploy Free instance type with usage limits $5 trial credit for 30 days, no card No free tier; Eco from $5/mo

Which one fits

Pick DevLyft if

  • You want a database, worker or compliance-bound service on a machine nobody else uses, without an enterprise contract.
  • You want staging on cheap shared compute and production on dedicated nodes, in the same project.
  • You already ship a Docker image and don't want plan tiers or a per-workspace fee.

Pick another platform if

  • You need managed Postgres or Redis from the same provider today.
  • You deploy with git push and don't build images.
  • You need autoscaling now, or the cheapest possible always-on hobby service.

Move a service to DevLyft

For one web service. Run the new deploy beside the old one and switch DNS last, so there's nothing to roll back.

  1. Export your environment variables

    heroku config --shell -a your-app > app.env

    Keep the file somewhere safe and delete it when you're done. DevLyft secrets are write-only, so this is your copy.

  2. Push an image DevLyft can pull

    If you already have a Dockerfile, build and push it to a registry such as GitHub Container Registry. Heroku apps that use buildpacks can build an image with Cloud Native Buildpacks instead.

    docker build -t ghcr.io/acme/web:1.0.0 .
docker push ghcr.io/acme/web:1.0.0

# buildpack apps
pack build ghcr.io/acme/web:1.0.0 --builder heroku/builder:24 --publish

    Note the port your app listens on inside the container. Platforms that inject PORT may have hidden it from you.

  3. Create the build, environment and secrets

    In the dashboard: create a project, add a build with the image, tag and container port, then add a production environment. Choose shared or isolated tenancy there. Add each variable from step 1 under Secrets. Quick start

  4. Keep your database where it is, for now

    Managed databases on DevLyft are coming soon. Until then, point the new deploy at your existing database by setting DATABASE_URL as a secret, and make sure the database accepts connections from outside its old platform. Some managed databases are only reachable from inside their own network.

  5. Deploy and check it

    Create the deploy, pick a location near your users, set replicas and tick Publicly expose this deploy. Watch the logs until the pod is Running.

  6. Switch DNS

    A day before, lower the TTL on your current record. Claim your domain in DevLyft (TXT record), attach the hostname to the deploy, then change the CNAME to the target the dashboard gives you. On Cloudflare, set it to DNS only. Keep the old service running until traffic has moved. Custom domains

    dig +short www.example.com
curl -I https://www.example.com

Try it on one service

Free to sign up. You add a card when you deploy your first build.

Create account

Sources