Hatchbox vs Engine Yard

The month-to-month alternative to Engine Yard

Real servers, root access, and a Rails-first setup — without a per-instance support fee, an annual contract, or being tied to AWS.

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Includes a 7 day free trial. $15 per server per month after that — unlimited apps.

Engine Yard was hosting Rails apps before most of today's platforms existed, and plenty of large Rails applications grew up on it. It still works the way it always has: Chef-configured EC2 servers on AWS, looked after by an operations team.

A lot has changed around it. Engine Yard was acquired in 2017 and is now part of ESW Capital's DevFactory. Development of its Kubernetes product, EYK, ended in June 2023. In March 2024, monthly support prices rose 45% and the smaller plans were retired. Today you pay a support fee for every instance — $180 a month each on the annual Standard plan — plus a $1,200 yearly account fee, plus AWS on-demand prices for the servers themselves.

Hatchbox is Rails hosting in the same spirit — real servers you can SSH into, set up for Rails — for $15 per server per month. Keep your servers on AWS, or move them to DigitalOcean or Hetzner for a fraction of the price. Cancel whenever you like.

Where the two differ

$15 per server, month to month

Engine Yard's support fee starts at $180 per instance per month on an annual plan, or 45% more billed monthly. Annual plans renew at then-current rates and need 60 days' notice to cancel. Hatchbox is $15 per server with no contract.

Any cloud, not just AWS

Engine Yard runs on AWS only, at on-demand EC2 prices. Hatchbox creates servers in your own AWS account too — or on DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode, Vultr, or any Ubuntu server you already have.

A current operating system

Engine Yard's default stack still runs Ubuntu 20.04, which left standard support in May 2025; its Ubuntu 24.04 stack is opt-in. Hatchbox provisions new servers on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, on x86 or ARM.

People answer support

Since March 2025, Engine Yard support tickets go to an AI assistant first. At Hatchbox, a person who knows Rails and Linux reads every message — and can look at your server configuration with you.

Real-world pricing comparisons

Both sides run on the same AWS hardware, so the difference is all fees. Engine Yard pricing is from its billing and pricing article, verified September 2026, on the cheapest annual Standard plan. EBS storage and bandwidth cost the same on both and are left out.

Production Environment

An app server and a database server, both m5.large EC2 instances. Hatchbox costs $170 a month here vs. Engine Yard's $600 — 72% less, with no annual commitment. Billed monthly, Engine Yard's side comes to $762.

Platform Fee

Engine Yard Standard support, $180/instance x2 — $360.00
Hatchbox $15/server x2 — $30.00

Account Fee

Engine Yard $1,200/year — $100.00
Hatchbox None — $0.00

App Server

Engine Yard m5.large, AWS on-demand — $70.00
Hatchbox m5.large in your AWS account — $70.00

Database Server

Engine Yard m5.large, AWS on-demand — $70.00
Hatchbox m5.large, Postgres managed by Hatchbox — $70.00

TOTAL / MONTH

Engine Yard $600.00
Hatchbox $170.00

Single-Server App

One m5.large running the app and its database. Hatchbox costs $85 a month vs. $350. Move the same app to a 2 vCPU / 4GB DigitalOcean Droplet and the Hatchbox total drops to $39.

Platform Fee

Engine Yard Standard support, 1 instance — $180.00
Hatchbox $15/server — $15.00

Account Fee

Engine Yard $1,200/year — $100.00
Hatchbox None — $0.00

Server

Engine Yard m5.large, AWS on-demand — $70.00
Hatchbox m5.large in your AWS account — $70.00

TOTAL / MONTH

Engine Yard $350.00
Hatchbox $85.00

Sources: Engine Yard's billing and pricing article, March 2024 pricing changes, EYK end-of-engineering notice, and Ubuntu 24.04 stack notes. AWS price for m5.large is on-demand Linux in us-east-1.

Which one should you pick?

Engine Yard is a great fit if…

  • You need a contractual 24/7, 30-minute response when production is down (Gold and Platinum)
  • You want database administration, stack upgrades, and runbooks done for you (Platinum)
  • You want a vendor in the room for compliance audits
  • You're mid-contract and the setup is working

Hatchbox is a better fit if…

  • You'd rather pay $15 per server than $180+ per instance
  • You want to stay month to month, with no renewals to watch
  • You'd like the option to leave AWS for cheaper servers
  • You want to run several apps on one server without paying more

What customers say

I run 15+ Rails apps and static sites with Hatchbox. My bill went from $400/month on Heroku to $28/mo with Hatchbox & DigitalOcean combined.

Donn Felker

Software Professional

If you want the most bang for your buck, Hatchbox / Hetzner / DigitalOcean is the killer combo. You can throw sooo much at this and it's crazy how inexpensive it is.

Josh Pigford

Serial Entrepreneur

Applications deployed
24,000+
Deployments run
2 million+
Deploying since
2016

Read more customer stories

Engine Yard vs Hatchbox questions

Still stuck? Ask us directly — a real person who has migrated a lot of Rails apps will answer.

Is Hatchbox really cheaper than Engine Yard?
Yes. On identical AWS hardware, an app server plus a database server costs about $170/month with Hatchbox vs. about $600/month on Engine Yard's annual Standard plan, or $762 billed monthly. The difference is Engine Yard's per-instance support fee and $1,200 yearly account fee. Moving off EC2 on-demand to DigitalOcean or Hetzner saves more on top.

Can I keep my servers on AWS?
Yes. Hatchbox creates EC2 instances in your own AWS account, on x86 or Graviton, running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. You can also mix providers — for example, keep production on AWS and put staging on a $12 DigitalOcean Droplet. See Rails hosting on AWS.

Does Hatchbox work with Sidekiq, Resque, or Delayed Job?
Yes. Hatchbox adds a worker process automatically when it detects Solid Queue or Sidekiq, and any other command — Resque, Delayed Job, GoodJob — can be added as a process from the dashboard. Cron jobs are configured the same way.

What about 24/7 support?
Hatchbox doesn't sell a 24/7 on-call operations contract. Your apps run on your servers independently of Hatchbox, so a Hatchbox outage doesn't take them down, and support is handled by people rather than a chatbot. If you need a contractual 30-minute response at 3am, Engine Yard's Gold and Platinum plans exist for exactly that.

How do I migrate from Engine Yard to Hatchbox?
Connect your GitHub repo, create servers from the Hatchbox dashboard, and copy over your environment variables. Restore your database from an Engine Yard backup, copy uploaded files with scp, deploy, and switch DNS. Check your Engine Yard contract's renewal date first — annual plans need 60 days' notice. Share your Engine Yard setup with us and we'll map the migration for free.

Simple, predictable pricing.

We charge per server, not per app. Run one application or twenty on the same box — the bill doesn't change.

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$15

/server/mo
  • Unlimited applications
  • Deploy anywhere
  • Zero downtime deployments
  • Custom domains & free SSL
  • Databases, cron jobs & background workers
  • Full SSH access to your servers
  • Real, human support
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