TempsTemps

Temps vs Railway

Railway bills per seat plus usage. Temps is a flat ~$6/mo.

Railway's Pro plan is $20/user/month plus CPU, memory, and bandwidth usage — a 3-person team pays $60/mo before compute. The Hobby plan is $5/mo, designed for individual developers. Temps is ~$6/mo on Temps Cloud (Hetzner server cost + 30% margin) with analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring all included — no per-seat pricing, no overage surprises.

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Monthly cost at a glance

Temps
Railway
Solo developer
~$6/mo
$5/mo
3-person team
~$6/mo
$60+/mo
5-person team
~$6/mo
$100+/mo
Typical full-stack app
~$6/mo
$25–80/mo
$curl -fsSL https://temps.sh/deploy.sh | bash

The short answer

Choose Temps if you…

  • You want predictable costs — no per-seat or usage-based billing
  • You need built-in error tracking, analytics, and session replay
  • You want to self-host for compliance or data sovereignty
  • You're running a team larger than 3 people where Railway Pro gets expensive
  • You want multi-node deployments with WireGuard mesh networking
  • You want no execution time or memory caps on your deployments
  • You need an AI Gateway for routing OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini traffic

Choose Railway if you…

  • You want zero infrastructure management — Railway handles everything
  • You're a solo developer and the Hobby plan's $5/mo fits your budget
  • You need Railway's specific integrations or marketplace templates
  • You prefer usage-based billing where you pay only for what you use
  • You need instant database provisioning without any ops setup
  • You want a proven platform — Temps is young (v0.1.0)

Why teams switch from Railway

Railway pricing 2026: $5/mo Hobby, $20/user/mo Pro
Railway has four plans: Trial ($0, one-time usage credit), Hobby ($5/mo, for individual developers), Pro ($20/user/mo, includes usage credits per seat), and Enterprise (custom). The Pro plan's $20/user/month charge applies regardless of usage — a 3-person team pays $60/mo base before any additional compute, storage, or bandwidth. Temps Cloud is ~$6/mo flat for any team size.
Full observability built in — Railway has none
Railway has no error tracking, no web analytics, and no session replay. To match Temps you'd add Sentry ($26+/mo), Plausible or PostHog ($9+/mo), and a session replay tool ($0–$99/mo). Temps ships all of this in one binary — Sentry-compatible DSN, privacy-first analytics, FullStory-equivalent replay, and uptime monitoring with alerting.
Self-host on any server — Railway locks you to their cloud
Railway has no self-hosted option. You pay their rates or migrate. Temps installs on any VPS, bare-metal server, or cloud VM with a single curl command. Apache 2.0 — no usage restrictions, no deployment caps, full source available.
Pingora proxy + WireGuard mesh, no resource caps
Temps uses Pingora (Cloudflare's open-source Rust proxy, handling over 1 trillion requests/day across Cloudflare's network) and embedded WireGuard for encrypted multi-node networking. Your server, your limits — no execution time caps, no memory ceilings, no bandwidth overages.

Feature comparison

What each platform includes out of the box, and what needs a separate subscription.

  • Git push deployments

    Temps

    Yes

    Railway

    Yes

  • Docker support

    Temps

    Yes

    Railway

    Yes

  • Automatic SSL

    Temps

    Yes

    Railway

    Yes

  • Preview deployments

    Temps

    Yes

    Railway

    Yes

  • Managed PostgreSQL

    Temps

    Yes

    Railway

    Yes

  • Managed Redis

    Temps

    Yes

    Railway

    Yes

  • Error tracking

    Temps

    Yes
    Sentry-compatible DSN, built-in

    Railway

    No
    External tool required (e.g. Sentry $26+/mo)

  • Web analytics

    Temps

    Yes
    Built-in, privacy-first

    Railway

    No
    External tool required (e.g. Plausible $9+/mo)

  • Session replay

    Temps

    Yes
    rrweb-based via @temps-sdk/react-analytics

    Railway

    No
    External tool required (e.g. FullStory $99+/mo)

  • Uptime monitoring

    Temps

    Yes
    Built-in, 60s check interval

    Railway

    No
    External tool required

  • Self-hosted option

    Temps

    Yes
    Apache 2.0, any VPS

    Railway

    No
    Cloud-only, no self-hosting

  • Multi-node clustering

    Temps

    Yes
    WireGuard mesh, one-command join

    Railway

    Managed for you
    Replicas and regions handled by Railway

  • Per-seat pricing

    Temps

    No
    ~$6/mo flat regardless of team size

    Railway

    Yes
    $20/user/mo on Pro

  • Instant provisioning

    Temps

    Yes

    Railway

    Yes

  • Framework autodetection

    Temps

    Yes
    Dockerfile or source autodetect

    Railway

    Yes
    Nixpacks

  • AI Gateway

    Temps

    Yes
    Routes OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini with OTel tracing

    Railway

    No
    Not available

What it actually costs

Railway's Hobby plan ($5/mo) is designed for individual developers and personal projects. The Pro plan's $20/user/month pricing means teams pay $60–$200/mo base before any compute usage. Temps Cloud is ~$6/mo regardless of team size — no per-seat fees, no usage-based billing.

ScenarioTempsRailway
Solo developer~$6/mo (Temps Cloud)$5/mo (Hobby, 1 user)
3-person team~$6/mo (same flat rate)$60+/mo (Pro × 3 users + usage)
5-person team~$6/mo (same flat rate)$100+/mo (Pro × 5 users + usage)
Typical full-stack app~$6/mo$25–80/mo (usage dependent)

Railway Pricing Plans 2026

PlanPriceIncluded CreditsSeatsBest For
Trial$0$5 one-time1Evaluation only
Hobby$5/moIncluded usage creditsIndividual developersSolo side projects
Pro$20/user/moIncluded credits per seatUnlimitedTeams (scales with headcount)
EnterpriseCustomCustomUnlimitedCustom SLAs, dedicated support

Source: Railway pricing page. Numbers current as of 2026.

Migrating from Railway

Easy difficulty

Railway apps need zero code changes. Dockerfile-based services deploy directly to Temps; for buildpack-detected apps, Temps autodetects the same framework (Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, Rust, Java). The only manual steps are exporting environment variables from Railway's dashboard and updating database connection strings to point at Temps-managed PostgreSQL or Redis instances.

Frequently asked questions

What is Railway pricing in 2026?

Railway has four pricing plans in 2026. Trial: free with a one-time usage credit for evaluation. Hobby: $5/month for individual developers, includes usage credits. Pro: $20/user/month, includes usage credits per seat — a 3-person team pays $60/month base before any additional compute, storage, or bandwidth. Enterprise: custom pricing with dedicated support and SLAs. Usage above included credits is billed at Railway's compute rates (CPU, memory, and bandwidth separately).

Is Railway or Temps cheaper for a 3-person team in 2026?

Temps is significantly cheaper for teams. Railway Pro costs $20/user/month — a 3-person team pays $60/mo before any compute, storage, or bandwidth usage. Temps Cloud costs approximately $6/mo total (Hetzner server cost plus 30% margin) with no per-seat fees. At 3 users, Temps saves roughly $54/mo or $648/year, not counting the observability tools (Sentry, analytics, session replay) that Railway requires separately.

Does Railway have built-in analytics or error tracking?

No. Railway has no built-in web analytics, error tracking, or session replay as of 2026. To get the equivalent of Temps' observability stack on Railway, you'd add Sentry ($26+/mo), Plausible or PostHog ($9–$50+/mo), and a session replay tool ($0–$99/mo) — adding $35–$175/mo on top of Railway's compute costs. Temps includes all of this in the same binary as the deployment engine.

Can I self-host Railway?

No. Railway is closed-source SaaS with no self-hosting option. If you stop paying, you migrate or your apps go offline. Temps is Apache 2.0 — install it on any VPS, cloud VM, or bare-metal server. Your data, your server, no lock-in.

What proxy does Temps use — is it production-ready?

Temps uses Pingora, the open-source Rust reverse proxy that Cloudflare built to replace Nginx across its global network. Pingora handles over 1 trillion requests per day on Cloudflare's infrastructure. Temps ships Pingora as the routing layer, so you get enterprise-grade proxy reliability without running a separate Nginx or Caddy instance.

How does Temps handle multi-node deployments vs Railway?

Railway runs single-tenant managed containers — you can't add worker nodes or build a multi-server cluster. Temps supports multi-node deployments via WireGuard mesh networking: run 'temps join' on additional servers to connect them to your control plane over an encrypted peer-to-peer mesh. This lets you distribute workloads across multiple VPS instances without exposing them to the public internet.

What happens to Railway pricing if my app gets popular?

Railway's compute, memory, and bandwidth costs scale with usage, and the Pro plan's $20/user/month charge applies regardless of app traffic. Teams report bills climbing to $100–$300/mo for moderately trafficked apps. Temps Cloud's ~$6/mo covers a single Hetzner VPS — if you outgrow it, you add a second node for the cost of the extra server (~$4–8/mo), not a per-seat or per-request charge.

Does Railway have a free tier in 2026?

Railway's Trial plan is free with a one-time usage credit for evaluation — not a recurring free tier. Once the credit is exhausted, you need to upgrade to Hobby ($5/mo) or Pro ($20/user/mo). The Hobby plan is for individual developers; Pro is the team plan at $20/user/month. There is no recurring free tier for ongoing projects. Temps is free to self-host (Apache 2.0, no account needed) — or ~$6/mo on Temps Cloud if you want managed hosting.

Ready to switch from Railway?

Self-host Temps for free, or run it on Temps Cloud from ~$6/mo.

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