Doable vs Railway

Doable vs Railway, both deploy containers, different defaults

Railway and Doable are the two closest peers in this list, both deploy containers and both target developers who don't want to wrangle Kubernetes. The differences are pricing model (Railway is usage-based, Doable is flat), AI-tool integration (Doable ships a first-class MCP server), and BYO servers (Doable supports them, Railway doesn't).

At a glance

Feature	Doable	Railway
Pricing model	Flat per-month: Free / $15 / $39	Pay-as-you-go: $5/mo subscription + usage
Bring-your-own server	Yes, agent on any Linux host	No, must use Railway infrastructure
Managed databases	Attach external (Neon, Supabase, Upstash, Atlas) via `addon attach`	Built-in Postgres / MySQL / Redis / Mongo
AI-tool integration	First-class MCP server	CLI-only
Free tier	1 project, 20-min build, no card required	Trial credits; ongoing use requires subscription
Build output	Standard Docker image	Railway-built (Nixpacks or Dockerfile)

Where Railway is the better fit

›You want managed Postgres / MySQL / Redis / MongoDB provisioned with one click and billed to the same account.
›Your traffic is bursty and you'd rather pay for actual usage than a flat monthly fee.
›You want the more-featured database UI Railway has built up over the past few years.

Where Doable is the better fit

›You want flat, predictable pricing, no surprise bills if a deploy starts churning CPU.
›You deploy from an AI coding tool and want native MCP support (`/deploy` in Claude Code).
›You want to bring your own server. Connect a Hetzner box and deploy to it for free; Railway requires their infrastructure.
›You want to attach existing managed databases (Neon, Supabase, Upstash, Atlas) via `doable addon attach` instead of re-provisioning them on the platform.

Choose Railway if…

•You want managed databases provisioned and billed alongside your app.
•You'd rather pay for actual usage than a flat monthly fee.
•You like the Railway UI for managing services.

Choose Doable if…

•You want flat pricing with no usage surprises.
•You deploy from an AI coding tool and want one command from inside your editor.
•You want the option to deploy to your own server with the same workflow.
•You're already using Neon / Supabase / Upstash and want to keep those, Doable's addon attach is built for that case.

FAQ

Is Railway or Doable cheaper?

For predictable workloads, Doable's flat pricing usually wins, $15/mo for Starter covers 3 projects with no usage metering. For bursty workloads or projects that need short-lived bursts of compute, Railway's pay-as-you-go can be cheaper.

Can I run a Postgres database on Doable?

You attach an external one (Neon, Supabase, Upstash, Atlas, or any Postgres URL) via `doable addon attach`. Doable doesn't provision databases itself yet, by design, since the dedicated managed-Postgres providers are very good and can run on your existing accounts.

Can I deploy a Railway-built project to Doable?

Yes, if your project has a Dockerfile it works directly. If you used Railway's Nixpacks build, Doable detects the runtime (Node, Python, etc.) the same way, so most projects move over without changes.

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