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A world tour for a local app?

Fly.io alternative for PHP hosting

Q: Does a typical PHP app need a global edge?

Rarely - Internal tools, marketing sites and Laravel apps with one user base gain nothing from a worldwide fleet. If users are spread across continents, Fly.io's regions are a real advantage.

Q: Can it be tried first?

Yes - Seven days free per new app, no credit card. Enough to import a database and test a deploy.

Fly.io puts apps close to users around the world. Most PHP apps have their users in one country, and there a Dockerfile and flyctl buy nothing. Consider fortrabbit.

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Built what

Built how

About Fly.io

Jack of all trades. Fly distributes Firecracker microVMs around the globe. Apps deploy from a Dockerfile, and registration and configuration run through Fly's CLI tool, flyctl. The CLI is comfortable and easy to use, but as complexity grows, console comfort may diminish. Billing is by usage, per second.

Fly's king feature is its global distribution. If you don't require it, consider alternatives both above and below Fly.

Why not Fly.io?

Think about a typical PHP app: a Laravel shop for customers in Germany, a Craft CMS site for a museum in Amsterdam. The users sit in one country. For them the global fleet brings a Dockerfile, a fly.toml, the CLI and a bill made of machine seconds, volumes and bandwidth. MySQL is not offered at all.

Why fortrabbit

Like Fly, fortrabbit is a PaaS-like service. fortrabbit on the other side has a higher grade of abstraction. It's zoomed in to the specific requirements of PHP hosting: push to the branch, Composer runs, the app starts on the PHP version set in the dashboard. MySQL is a component, uploads live in persistent storage. It encourages modern paradigms, yet it is backwards compatible, with SSH and SFTP on every plan.

Fly.io and fortrabbit

Feature	Fly.io	fortrabbit
Runtimes	Any, as microVMs	PHP only
Deployment	flyctl, Dockerfile	git push, Composer
MySQL	Not offered	Component
Regions	Worldwide	EU (Ireland), US
File storage	Volumes	Persistent storage
Billing	Usage, per second	Per component, arrears

# Different by design

Pay in arrears

Daily prorated, post-paid billing. No upfront payment, no yearly commitment.

Modular pricing

Pay per component and scale each one from xs to 2xl on its own.

No dark patterns

No vendor lock-in, no upselling, no misleading messages.

Humans in support

Eye-level developer chat over the support bubble. No sales calls.

Developer-first

Git-push deploy, SSH access, bring your own code. No 1-click bloat.

Managed platform

A hardened, service-oriented PHP stack. Deploy code, skip the server admin.

# Frequently asked

Does a typical PHP app need a global edge?

Rarely

Rarely - Internal tools, marketing sites and Laravel apps with one user base gain nothing from a worldwide fleet. If users are spread across continents, Fly.io's regions are a real advantage.

Is a Dockerfile needed on fortrabbit?

No - Push the repo, Composer runs in the build, and the app starts on the PHP version set in the dashboard. There is no image to build and no fly.toml.

Can it be tried first?

Yes

Yes - Seven days free per new app, no credit card. Enough to import a database and test a deploy.

# What customers say

Having fortrabbit is like having a dedicated DevOps engineer on the team, taking care of the infrastructure so we can focus on writing code. We've used many PaaS providers, but none come close to fortrabbit's mix of features, reliability, predictable and fair pricing, and fast, genuinely helpful support. Their service has been rock solid, giving us the confidence that our apps are in good hands.

Len van Essen

CTO at Fitwinkel

2026 — Direct feedback

Unmatched performances and ease-of-configure. I really like what fortrabbit is doing for the modern PHP hosting ecosystem, and I'd suggest anyone to have a try with them.

Federico Magnani

CTO at glueglue