Railway vs Deno Deploy for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Railway Overview

Railway is a full-stack PaaS that handles deployment, databases, and services in one dashboard. Push your code, Railway auto-detects your stack with Nixpacks, builds it, and deploys. You get one-click Postgres, Redis, MySQL, and more. Environment variables link services automatically.

The experience is polished. I've deployed Django, Node, Go, and Rails apps on Railway, and the process is nearly identical for each. The visual project graph shows every service and how they connect. Logs, metrics, and resource usage are all visible in real time. For a solo developer juggling an API, database, and background workers, Railway keeps everything organized.

Pricing is $5/month base plus usage. A typical project runs $7-15/month depending on compute and storage needs.

Deno Deploy Overview

Deno Deploy is a serverless edge platform built by the Deno team. It runs JavaScript and TypeScript on a global network of edge servers, so your code executes close to your users. Deploy by linking a GitHub repo, and every push triggers a deploy to 35+ regions simultaneously.

The platform is designed around Deno's runtime. If you're using Fresh, Hono, or raw Deno APIs, the deployment experience is seamless. There's no build step for most projects. Your code goes from GitHub to globally distributed edge servers in seconds. Cold starts are minimal because Deno's V8 isolate model is lighter than containerized deployments.

Deno Deploy includes KV, a globally distributed key-value store, and Deno Queues for async task processing. The free tier gives you 100,000 requests per day, which is generous for side projects. The Pro tier at $20/month removes limits and adds custom domains, analytics, and more.

Key Differences

Architecture. Railway runs containers on servers in a single region. Deno Deploy runs V8 isolates on edge servers across the globe. If your API serves users worldwide and latency matters, Deno Deploy's edge model gives you better response times without any extra configuration. Railway is faster to scale vertically, though.

Language support. Railway supports any language or framework that runs in a container. Python, Go, Ruby, Rust, Java, Node, whatever. Deno Deploy only runs JavaScript and TypeScript through the Deno runtime. If you're building with Django or Rails, Deno Deploy isn't an option. If you're all-in on TypeScript, it's excellent.

Database story. Railway has one-click managed databases. Postgres, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB. Deno Deploy offers KV, which is a key-value store. It's useful for caching, session storage, and simple data, but it's not a relational database. For anything requiring SQL, you'd pair Deno Deploy with an external database like Neon, PlanetScale, or Supabase.

Pricing model. Railway charges for always-on compute. Your container runs 24/7, and you pay for it. Deno Deploy charges per request, so idle apps cost nothing. For projects with sporadic traffic, Deno Deploy's free tier is hard to beat. For always-on services with steady traffic, Railway's pricing can actually be cheaper.

Deployment speed. Deno Deploy wins here. No Docker builds, no container provisioning. Code goes from push to live in seconds. Railway's build step takes 1-3 minutes depending on your stack. Not a dealbreaker, but the speed difference is noticeable during rapid iteration.

Full-stack capabilities. Railway is genuinely full-stack. Databases, cron jobs, workers, and multiple services all live in one project. Deno Deploy is focused on the compute layer. You can build full applications, but you'll need external services for persistent storage, background jobs, and anything that doesn't fit the request/response model.

When to Choose Railway

• You need databases, workers, and services in one platform
• Your stack isn't JavaScript or TypeScript
• You want a managed, always-on compute environment
• Predictable per-service pricing works better for your budget
• You prefer a visual dashboard for managing infrastructure

When to Choose Deno Deploy

• You're building TypeScript APIs or edge-first applications
• Global low latency matters for your use case
• You want the fastest possible deployment cycle
• Your project is lightweight and doesn't need a traditional database
• The free tier's 100K daily requests covers your traffic

The Verdict

These platforms serve different needs. Railway is the general-purpose PaaS for full-stack applications in any language. Deno Deploy is a specialized edge platform for TypeScript-first projects that prioritize global performance and simplicity.

If you're building a full-stack SaaS with a database, background jobs, and multiple services, Railway is the obvious pick. Everything lives in one place, and the developer experience is excellent.

If you're building a lightweight API, a webhook handler, a server-rendered site with Fresh, or anything where edge performance matters, Deno Deploy is faster to set up and cheaper to run. The free tier alone makes it worth trying for side projects.

My recommendation: use both for what they're good at. Deno Deploy for your fast edge APIs and lightweight services. Railway for your full-stack apps that need databases and persistent infrastructure. They complement each other well.