Railway Killed My Demo 5 Minutes Before the Client Call

Railway's $5 credit system is designed to fuck you over. Here's exactly how it went down for me and apparently hundreds of other developers based on this Reddit thread:

Sunday Night Deployment Death

I deployed a Next.js app on a Friday. Everything worked perfectly. Used their Nixpacks build system which detected my dependencies automatically. Felt like magic.

Sunday night, 11:47 PM: client sends "the app is down." Check Railway dashboard - $5.23 in usage. Service stopped. No warning email. No grace period. No "hey your credit is low." Just dead.

Monday morning client call: "So about that broken demo..."

The Gotchas They Don't Tell You

Railway's pricing page makes it sound reasonable. "$5 credit, then $5/month hobby plan." Bullshit they conveniently leave out:

• That $5 credit includes everything: compute, database, bandwidth, even their fucking load balancer
• A Postgres instance alone eats $2-3 of that credit
• One traffic spike and you're done - no protection, no caps, no mercy
• Background workers count as separate services, each burning through credits

Found this out the hard way when my simple blog app needed Redis for caching. Three services (app, database, Redis) = three times the credit burn rate.

When Simple Apps Aren't Simple

Railway's Nixpacks auto-detection works great until it doesn't. Had a Node 18.2.0 app with Sharp image processing that needed Python 3.9 (Sharp breaks on 3.11). Nixpacks kept force-installing Python 3.11 anyway.

Error message: Build failed: python3-dev not found in PATH

Their solution? "Add a nixpacks.toml file and configure it manually." Great, so much for "automatic detection."

Tried to deploy the same app to Fly.io later - their Docker-based approach handled the dependencies correctly on the first try. No special config file needed.

The BYOC Lie

Railway won't shut up about simplicity but locks you into their overpriced infrastructure. No bring-your-own-cloud means you're hostage to their bullshit pricing.

Needed to deploy to our existing AWS account for compliance reasons. Railway's answer: "We don't support that." Full stop.

Switched to Northflank which lets you deploy to your own AWS/GCP/Azure accounts. Same simple deployment experience, but using our existing cloud spend and meeting our security requirements.

Debug Hell

Railway's logs are garbage when things break. Had a deployment fail with:

Build completed successfully
Starting app...
Error: Process exited with code 1

That's it. No stack trace, no error details, no hints about what went wrong.

Spent 3 hours debugging locally before realizing Railway wasn't setting environment variables correctly. The Render equivalent would have shown me the exact environment variable issue in the logs.

Why We Actually Switch

It's not the $5 that pisses me off. It's laying awake at 2am wondering if my app is still running. Every deployment is Russian roulette - will this traffic spike kill my app? Will I wake up to angry client emails?

The alternatives exist and they're better:

• Coolify if you want to self-host and never worry about credits again
• Northflank if you need production features Railway pretends to have
• Fly.io if you want global deployment that actually works
• Render if you want Railway's simplicity without the credit hostage situation

Additional Reading on Railway's Problems:

• Railway pricing structure - Official pricing documentation
• Railway database documentation - PostgreSQL limitations and setup
• Nixpacks build system - Auto-detection build tool used by Railway
• Railway environment variables - Configuration and limitations
• Railway background services - Worker service setup
• Railway deployments - Deployment process and monitoring
• Railway status page - Platform uptime and incident reports
• Railway community forum - User discussions and support

The Platforms That Actually Give a Shit About Uptime

Northflank: When You Need Something That Works

Northflank doesn't randomly kill your apps. That's literally their main selling point and it shouldn't be revolutionary, but here we are.

The BYOC Setup Hell: Their Bring Your Own Cloud feature is amazing once you get through the setup. Three days of IAM policy debugging, two support tickets titled "WHY WON'T THIS WORK," and one existential crisis later, you have Railway's simplicity running on your AWS account.

Real Production Benefits:

• Background workers that actually exist as first-class citizens, not Railway's "just run another service" bullshit
• Persistent storage that doesn't randomly disappear
• Real observability that tells you what actually went wrong instead of "Process exited with code 1"

My experience: $127/month on our AWS account vs Railway's unpredictable credit burn. The peace of mind is worth it.

Fly.io: Networking Complexity Incarnate

Fly.io will deploy your app globally and then confuse the shit out of you with their networking.

The IPv6 Rabbit Hole: Their IPv6-first approach sounds modern until your payment webhooks start failing because half the internet still doesn't properly support IPv6. Spent a weekend adding IPv4 compatibility that should have "just worked."

What Actually Works:

• Global deployment that puts your app close to users automatically
• Persistent volumes that survive container restarts
• Usage-based pricing without credit hostage situations

Reality Check: $43/month for a Node.js app + Postgres, but you'll spend hours debugging their networking model. Great if you love Docker and CLI tools, frustrating if you want simple.

Coolify: DIY Paradise (or Hell)

Coolify is what you get when developers build Railway for themselves. It's powerful, free, and will make you question your life choices at 3am.

The Setup Experience:

• Install on a DigitalOcean droplet: 5 minutes
• Configure SSL certificates: 30 minutes of Docker debugging
• Deploy your first app: Works perfectly
• Deploy your second app: Docker build fails for mysterious reasons

What You Get:

• Complete control over everything
• Docker-native deployment that actually makes sense
• Multiple databases without artificial service limits
• Total monthly cost: Whatever your VPS costs ($5-20)

Hard Truth: Perfect for masochists who get off on debugging Docker build failures at 3am. If that sounds fun, Coolify is your jam.

Render: Railway But Working

Render took Railway's good ideas and implemented them competently.

The "Free" Tier Reality: Sleeps your app every 15 minutes of inactivity. So "free" means "useless for any demo." But their $7/month paid tier actually keeps things running.

What Actually Works:

• Native background workers instead of Railway's service multiplication
• Environment branching for testing different branches
• Deployment logs that show actual error messages

Honest Assessment: It's Railway with fewer gotchas and more maturity. Less exciting, more reliable.

Which One Doesn't Suck?

For production apps: Northflank if you can survive the BYOC setup. It's the only one that feels designed for real applications.

For global users: Fly.io if you're comfortable with CLI tools and networking complexity.

For control freaks: Coolify if you enjoy the smell of burning Docker containers at 3am.

For simple apps: Render if you just want Railway that actually works.

For staying on Railway: Just don't. Save yourself the 3am debugging sessions and client apology emails.

Deep Dive Resources:

• Northflank getting started guide - Complete platform documentation
• Fly.io networking guide - Understanding their networking model
• Coolify installation guide - Self-hosting setup instructions
• Render documentation - Feature-by-feature breakdown
• Docker deployment best practices - Better than Nixpacks approach
• PostgreSQL migration tools - Database export/import procedures
• SSL certificate management - Proper HTTPS setup
• Background job patterns - Real worker queue implementations
• Infrastructure monitoring - Proper uptime monitoring tools
• Cost optimization strategies - Managing cloud expenses

Don't Migrate at 3am When Railway Dies

Timing Reality: Migrate BEFORE Railway kills your app, not after it's dead and your client is losing their shit via email.

I made this mistake. App died Sunday night, spent Monday morning frantically migrating to Render while apologizing to clients. Learn from my stupidity.

Smart Timeline:

• Friday: Start migration to new platform
• Weekend: Test everything thoroughly
• Monday: Switch DNS if all looks good
• Never: Wait until Railway kills your app

Pick Your Poison

Northflank if you need production features and can survive BYOC setup hell. Their bring-your-own-cloud setup took me 3 days but never randomly shuts down.

Render if you want Railway that actually works. $7/month and your app stays online. Revolutionary concept.

Fly.io if you love global deployment and debugging IPv6 networking issues at 2am.

Coolify if you're a masochist who enjoys Docker debugging but wants full control.

The Actual Migration Process (What Really Happens)

Step 1: Export Everything

## Get your database before Railway locks you out
pg_dump $RAILWAY_DATABASE_URL > backup.sql

## Export environment variables
railway variables > .env.backup

Step 2: Deploy Elsewhere

• Create new project on chosen platform
• Import your environment variables (review each one - some need platform-specific changes)
• Import database: psql $NEW_DATABASE_URL < backup.sql
• Deploy and test EVERYTHING

Step 3: Switch DNS
Update your domain to point to the new platform. Set a low TTL initially so you can revert quickly when things inevitably break.

Step 4: Monitor Everything
Watch logs, error rates, response times for 48 hours. Keep Railway as backup until you sleep soundly again.

What Actually Breaks During Migration

Environment Variables: Railway's RAILWAY_STATIC_URL disappears when you leave. Your hardcoded references will break spectacularly.

Database Connections: Connection pooling configs often differ. Render, Northflank, and Fly.io all handle this differently.

File Storage: If you were storing files locally (bad idea), they'll disappear. Use S3 or similar.

Background Jobs: Railway's "just run another service" approach needs to be rewritten for platforms with actual worker support.

Post-Migration: Stop Fucking Around

Set up proper monitoring: Don't rely on "checking the app occasionally." Use Uptime Robot or similar to catch downtime before your users do.

Implement real backups: Don't trust platform backups. Set up automated database backups to S3 or similar.

Document everything: Write down your deployment process, environment variables, and configuration. Your future self will thank you.

The Truth About Migration Benefits

Anxiety reduction: No more checking Railway credit usage obsessively. Your app just works.

Better debugging: Actual error messages in logs instead of "Process exited with code 1."

Real scaling: Your app can handle traffic spikes without dying from credit exhaustion.

Production features: Background jobs, persistent storage, proper observability - stuff Railway pretends to have.

Cost transparency: Know exactly what you're paying instead of unpredictable credit burn.

Most teams break even within a month from saved debugging time and fewer 3am wake-up calls.

Essential Migration Resources:

• Database migration checklist - Complete PostgreSQL backup and restore guide
• DNS migration guide - Proper domain switching techniques
• Environment variable management - Configuration best practices across platforms
• Docker container optimization - Better deployment patterns
• SSL certificate automation - Free HTTPS setup
• Application monitoring setup - Proper observability implementation
• PostgreSQL backup automation - Automated database backups
• Load testing tools - Verify performance before switching
• Incident response planning - Preparing for deployment issues
• Cost tracking tools - Monitor spending across platforms