App hosting: PaaS or a VPS?
Render, Railway, Fly.io and DigitalOcean App Platform against Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr and Linode servers. Free tiers, sizes and bandwidth.
· 6 min read
In short: a VPS gives you the most server for the money, from about $5 a month for 1 GB of memory, but you look after it yourself. A PaaS costs more for the same size and runs the server for you. Free app hosting exists, but it sleeps or runs out quickly. All prices below were checked in October 2026.
Do you need either?
If your site is static, or your backend is a few small functions, you may not need a server at all. See the cheapest way to host a website and CI minutes and serverless functions.
You need app hosting when your app runs a long-lived process: an API server, a WebSocket server, a worker that runs all day, or a Docker container.
Two kinds of app hosting
A PaaS (platform as a service) runs your backend server or Docker container for you, without you managing a machine. You pick a size and deploy your code. Render, Railway, Fly.io and DigitalOcean App Platform work this way.
A VPS (virtual private server) is a rented Linux machine. You get a blank server and install everything yourself. Hetzner Cloud, DigitalOcean Droplets, Vultr and Linode sell these.
Both are sold by size: memory (RAM) and vCPUs. A vCPU is a share of a processor core; more vCPUs let the server do more work at once.
What you manage yourself
On a PaaS, the provider handles the server. Render handles servers, TLS certificates (the "https" part) and updates. DigitalOcean App Platform handles servers, patching and HTTPS.
On a VPS, updates, security and backups are your job. Backups usually cost extra:
- DigitalOcean: weekly backups are 20% of the Droplet price, daily backups 30%.
- Hetzner: backups are 20% of the server price.
- Linode: backups are an optional add-on, about $2 a month for the 1 GB size.
If you have never run a Linux server, count your own time as part of the price.
Free tiers that sleep
Free app hosting is for trying things out:
- Render Free: a 512 MB web service that sleeps after 15 minutes without traffic and takes about a minute to wake. You get 750 free instance hours per workspace a month. Render says not to use Free instances for production. The filesystem is wiped on every redeploy, restart and spin-down, and free Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation.
- Railway Free: $1 of usage credit a month, with each service limited to 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB of RAM. New accounts start with a 30-day trial that includes a one-time $5 credit.
- Fly.io: no free tier. New accounts get a trial of up to 2 machine hours or 7 days, then you add a card.
- DigitalOcean App Platform: free for up to 3 apps made only of static sites. Anything that needs a server is paid.
A sleeping app is fine for a demo. For real users, the first visitor after a quiet spell waits for it to wake.
The server size setting
Because you choose the size, the stack builder has a server size setting. Open Advanced, then "How usage is estimated", and look for "Server size (memory, GB)". It is 1 GB of memory by default, and you can pick 0.5, 1, 2, 4 or 8 GB. The builder prices the cheapest plan with at least that much memory, running all month.
At the default 1 GB:
| Provider | Type | Plan picked | Monthly price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linode | VPS | Nanode 1 GB (1 vCPU) | $5.00 |
| Vultr | VPS | Regular 1 GB (1 vCPU) | $5.00 |
| DigitalOcean | VPS | Basic 1 GiB (1 vCPU) | $6.00 |
| Hetzner | VPS | CX23 (2 vCPU, 4 GB) | $6.49 |
| Fly.io | PaaS | shared-cpu-1x, 1 GB | $6.70 |
| DigitalOcean App Platform | PaaS | Shared 1 GiB, fixed | $10.00 |
| Railway | PaaS | Hobby, 1 GB used all month | $20.00 |
| Render | PaaS | Standard (2 GB, 1 CPU) | $25.00 |
These are prices for the server alone, before bandwidth and storage. A few notes on that table:
- Render has a Starter size at $7 a month, but it has 512 MB of memory, below the 1 GB default. The next size up is Standard at $25.
- Railway bills the memory and CPU your app actually uses: $10 per GB-month of RAM and $20 per vCPU-month. The builder assumes one service using the full size all month, with 0.5 vCPU per GB, so $20 is the upper bound for an always-on app. The $5 Hobby fee counts toward that usage.
- Fly.io prices are for its lowest-cost regions for a machine running a full 30 days. Other regions cost more.
- Hetzner's smallest listed size has 4 GB. Its price excludes VAT and the public IPv4 address, which Hetzner's docs list at $0.60 a month. Hetzner says cost-optimized sizes can sell out in some locations.
- DigitalOcean App Platform's $10 size cannot scale to more than one container. The $12 size can.
Bandwidth allowances
Bandwidth, or egress, is the data your server sends out to visitors. This is where PaaS and VPS differ most.
| Provider | Included each month | Price above that |
|---|---|---|
| Render | 5 GB on the Hobby workspace (25 GB on Pro) | $0.15 per GB |
| Railway | None beyond your plan credit | $0.05 per GB |
| Fly.io | None | $0.02 per GB in North America and Europe |
| DigitalOcean App Platform | 100 GiB on the $10 size | $0.02 per GiB |
| DigitalOcean Droplets | 1,000 GiB on the 1 GiB size | $0.01 per GiB |
| Linode | 1,000 GB on the 1 GB size | $0.005 per GB |
| Vultr | 1,024 GB on the 1 GB size, plus 2,048 GB per account | $0.01 per GB |
| Hetzner | 20 TB in EU locations | Not published in the sources we checked |
With the builder's defaults, 1,000 users use about 20 GB a month. That adds $2.25 on Render, $1.00 on Railway and $0.40 on Fly.io, and nothing on the VPS plans.
Fly.io charges more in other regions: $0.04 per GB in Asia Pacific, Oceania and South America, and $0.12 in Africa and India. DigitalOcean, Linode and Vultr pool the allowance across all your servers. Vultr's extra 2,048 GB is per account, not per server; the builder models one server, so it counts the full amount.
What to pick
- You are comfortable with Linux: a VPS. Linode or Vultr at $5, DigitalOcean at $6, or Hetzner's 4 GB size at $6.49 if your users are mostly in Europe.
- You want to push code and forget the server: Fly.io is the cheapest PaaS here at 1 GB. DigitalOcean App Platform is a simple flat $10.
- Your app is idle most of the time: Railway bills what you use, so a quiet app can cost less than the $20 upper bound.
- You are just testing: Render Free or Railway Free, knowing that Render sleeps and Railway's $1 credit runs out.
Compare them at your own size in the stack builder, or see every option under PaaS & Containers and Virtual Private Servers.