Servers live in your own cloud account
Connect DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vultr, OVH or AWS and Railyard provisions and deploys straight onto a server in that account.
Hatchbox · yes
Railyard vs Hatchbox
Hatchbox manages Rails apps on servers you already own — DigitalOcean, Hetzner, AWS, Vultr and other clouds, or your own Ubuntu box — for a flat $15 per server per month. Railyard gives you the same workflow on servers you own.
No markup on compute
You pay your cloud provider directly, at their price. Railyard's fee is a flat amount per team, not a cut of your server bill.
Hatchbox · yes
Bring any Ubuntu server over SSH
Point Railyard at an existing server's host, a user and an SSH key, and it connects and takes over from there.
Hatchbox · yes
Deploy from GitHub on every push
Connect a repository once; every push to the branch you choose builds, releases and swaps traffic automatically.
Hatchbox · yes
Preview environment per pull request
Each pull request gets its own copy with its own URL and a comment on the PR, torn down automatically when it closes.
Hatchbox · no
Managed databases with scheduled backups
Postgres, MySQL, Redis and more are provisioned on your servers, with backups scheduled, verified by a restore, and kept for the window you set.
Hatchbox · partial
Point-in-time database restore
Restore any database to any minute inside your retention window, into a new database alongside the original.
Hatchbox · no
Visual canvas of your project
Every service, database and the links between them render as a live picture you can edit and deploy from.
Hatchbox · no
Private network between services
Every server Railyard manages joins a private network automatically, so services talk to each other without touching the public internet.
Hatchbox · no
Sleep when idle, wake on request
An app with no traffic for a while stops its process, then starts it again the moment a request arrives.
Hatchbox · no
Plain-language reason when a deploy fails
A failed deploy names the cause in plain language — a failed health check, a bad build, a missing variable — and links straight to the fix.
Hatchbox · no
Apps keep running if you cancel
Your apps are plain containers on servers you own behind a standard proxy. Cancel Railyard and they keep serving traffic; you just lose the dashboard.
Hatchbox · yes
See the full comparison table
| Railyard | Hatchbox | |
|---|---|---|
| Servers live in your own cloud account | yes | yes |
| No markup on compute | yes | yes |
| Bring any Ubuntu server over SSH | yes | yes |
| Deploy from GitHub on every push | yes | yes |
| Preview environment per pull request | yes | no |
| Managed databases with scheduled backups | yes | partial |
| Point-in-time database restore | yes | no |
| Visual canvas of your project | yes | no |
| Private network between services | yes | no |
| Sleep when idle, wake on request | yes | no |
| Plain-language reason when a deploy fails | yes | no |
| Apps keep running if you cancel | yes | yes |
Something changed? Tell us at hello@railyard.run and we'll fix the row.
Where Hatchbox is better
- Background workers for Solid Queue and Sidekiq are detected and started automatically on the first deploy, with no extra configuration.
- A long Rails track record: built by GoRails since 2016, with more than 24,000 apps and 2 million deploys run, according to Hatchbox.
Pick Hatchbox if
Pick Hatchbox if you're specifically running Rails, want its Solid Queue/Sidekiq worker detection and MCP integration for AI coding tools, and are fine without pull request previews or point-in-time database restore.
Pick Railyard if
Pick Railyard if you want that same bring-your-own-server setup for any stack, not just Rails, plus pull request previews, a visual Canvas and point-in-time database restore, for a flat $19 a month per team.
Pricing
- Hatchbox
- A flat $15 per server per month, separate from your cloud bill, with unlimited apps and unlimited team members on each server; a 7-day free trial requires a payment method.
Sources: Hatchbox: Pricing · Hatchbox: Rails deployment
Also see Railyard vs Heroku · Railway · The Hatchbox alternative page →
Moving over
How teams move off Hatchbox
01
Deploy next to Hatchbox
Point Railyard at a new server and deploy a copy of your app. Nothing on your current setup changes yet.
02
Prove it on a temporary URL
Test the new deploy end to end before anyone else sees it.
03
Switch DNS when you're ready
Move traffic over in minutes. Your app was never offline during the move.
Your free 7-day server is waiting.
No credit card. No cloud account needed to test. Keep your first server free for good.
Free plan, no card, and 14 days of Pro for every new team. One flat price per team.