# Railway alternative for PHP hosting

> 

## Railway alternative for PHP at a glance

**fortrabbit is a managed PaaS built exclusively for PHP.** Railway is a polyglot deployment platform — a modern take on Heroku that runs PHP, Python, Ruby, Node, and more via buildpacks and containers. The UI is slick, but pricing is usage-based and can surprise at scale, and PHP is just one supported runtime among many.

If you're hosting PHP — Laravel, Symfony, Statamic, Craft CMS, Kirby, or plain PHP — fortrabbit gives you a focused environment: tuned PHP runtime, integrated MySQL, atomic deploys, persistent storage, and EU data residency. Pricing is per-app and predictable; no per-second metering. Plans start at €2.50 per month; the trial doesn't require a credit card.

## Railway vs fortrabbit — feature comparison

<table>
<thead>
  <tr>
    <th>
      Feature
    </th>
    
    <th>
      Railway
    </th>
    
    <th>
      fortrabbit
    </th>
  </tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
  <tr>
    <td>
      Focus
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Polyglot, buildpacks
    </td>
    
    <td>
      PHP only
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Deployment
    </td>
    
    <td>
      git + Dockerfile
    </td>
    
    <td>
      git push
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Managed MySQL
    </td>
    
    <td>
      As a service
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Native
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Managed Postgres
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Yes
    </td>
    
    <td>
      —
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      File storage
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Paid volumes
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Persistent app storage
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      SSH access
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Limited
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Full SFTP + SSH
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Region
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Global
    </td>
    
    <td>
      EU (Germany)
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Pricing model
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Usage-based per-second
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Per-app, monthly
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Free tier
    </td>
    
    <td>
      $5 trial credit
    </td>
    
    <td>
      30-day trial, no card
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Support
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Community, paid fast
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Human chat, all plans
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Company
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Venture-backed
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Independent, bootstrapped
    </td>
  </tr>
</tbody>
</table>

## Pricing comparison

<table>
<thead>
  <tr>
    <th>
      Use case
    </th>
    
    <th>
      Railway
    </th>
    
    <th>
      fortrabbit
    </th>
  </tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
  <tr>
    <td>
      Small site / dev
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Hobby $5 base + usage ≈ <strong>
        $10–$20 / mo
      </strong>
    </td>
    
    <td>
      <strong>
        €5 / mo
      </strong>
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Production app
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Pro $20 base + compute + DB ≈ <strong>
        $50–$100 / mo
      </strong>
    </td>
    
    <td>
      <strong>
        €30 / mo
      </strong>
    </td>
  </tr>
  
  <tr>
    <td>
      Scaled app
    </td>
    
    <td>
      Pro tier with sustained usage ≈ <strong>
        $150+ / mo
      </strong>
    </td>
    
    <td>
      <strong>
        €60–€120 / mo
      </strong>
      
       depending on tier
    </td>
  </tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Numbers are illustrative — Railway's usage-based billing varies a lot with traffic, compute time, and add-ons. See <content-link href="/pricing" text="fortrabbit pricing">



</content-link>

 for the current matrix.

## Migrating from Railway to fortrabbit

1. **Provision the app on fortrabbit.** Pick a region (EU) and a plan. The free trial is enough to validate the move.
2. **Add the MySQL component.** If you ran MySQL on Railway, take a `mysqldump` and import via fortrabbit's SSH tunnel — see <content-link href="/guides/general/mysql-import" text="MySQL import guide" prefix="docs">



</content-link>

. If you used Postgres, plan a schema port.
3. **Connect your git provider.** Install the fortrabbit GitHub App (or connect GitLab / Bitbucket) and link your existing repo to the new fortrabbit app — see <content-link href="/platform/deployment/intro" text="deployment intro" prefix="docs">



</content-link>

. Pushes to your branch trigger an automatic deploy; Composer install runs as part of it.
4. **Drop the Dockerfile.** fortrabbit deploys PHP source directly; no container image to maintain.
5. **Move environment variables.** Railway variables map 1:1 to fortrabbit env vars — set in the dashboard or via the CLI.
6. **Move volumes.** rsync from Railway volumes into your fortrabbit app's persistent storage via SFTP / SSH.
7. **Cut over DNS.** Add the domain in the fortrabbit dashboard, update the CNAME, and watch the certificate issue automatically via Let's Encrypt.

## Why teams switch

- **Predictable bills.** Per-app monthly pricing, no per-second compute math.
- **PHP-first ergonomics.** Composer, OPcache, PHP version pinning, integrated MySQL.
- **Owner-run support.** You talk to the engineers who run the platform.
- **No buildpacks, no Dockerfile.** Push PHP source, get a running app.

For background on Railway itself, see our <content-link href="/hosting-guide/providers/paas/railway" text="hosting guide entry">



</content-link>

.

<content-button property="dashboard" route="/signup" text="Start a free trial — no credit card">
<content-button property="www" route="/pricing" text="See pricing" variant="secondary">



</content-button>
</content-button>