Hatchbox vs Fly.io
The predictable alternative to Fly.io
Fly.io meters everything — compute by the second, storage by the gigabyte, egress by the region. Hatchbox is a flat $10 per server per month on machines you own, and the invoice looks the same every month.
Includes a 7 day free trial. $10 per server per month after that — unlimited apps.
Fly.io does some genuinely impressive things: machines that boot in under a second, thirty-plus regions with anycast routing, scale-to-zero for bursty workloads, and one of the best CLIs in the business. If your app truly needs to run in a dozen cities at once, Fly is built for that.
Most Rails apps don't need that — they need a couple of reliable servers, a database with
backups, and a bill that doesn't require a spreadsheet. On Fly, fly launch
generates a Dockerfile and fly.toml you maintain forever, shared CPUs are throttled under
sustained load, human support starts at $29/month extra, and the managed Postgres lineup
jumps from a 2GB plan at $72 straight to an 8GB plan at $282.
Hatchbox takes the opposite approach: plain Ubuntu servers in your own hosting account (Hetzner, DigitalOcean, AWS — anywhere), no Docker required, databases with scheduled backups on hardware you control, and support from actual humans included in the $10.
Where the two differ
Billing you can predict
Fly bills per second, per region, per gigabyte — machines, volumes, egress, IPv4 addresses, even stopped machines' root filesystems. Hatchbox is $10 per server. Your host bills you for the servers at their list price. That's the whole model.
No Dockerfile to maintain
fly launch generates a Dockerfile, fly.toml, and entrypoint scripts that
become your responsibility. Hatchbox detects Rails from your Gemfile and configures the
build itself — there's nothing to generate or maintain.
Servers you actually own
Fly machines live in Fly's cloud, and SSH gets you into a microVM. Hatchbox servers sit in your own hosting account with root access. If you ever leave, the servers keep running — nothing to migrate off.
Support included
Fly's ticket support starts at $29/month on top of usage; otherwise it's community forums. Hatchbox support is real humans who've deployed thousands of Rails apps, and it's included.
Real-world pricing comparisons
Fly.io pricing verified August 2026 (machine prices vary slightly by region). Hatchbox examples use DigitalOcean; Hetzner runs even cheaper. Full details on our pricing page.
Production Setup
Two 2GB web processes, a worker, managed Postgres, and Redis. Fly's supported Postgres path jumps from 2GB to 8GB, so a 4GB-class app lands on the $282 Launch plan. Hatchbox runs Postgres and Redis with scheduled backups on a server you own — about $103/month vs. Fly's ~$346, a 70% reduction.
| Component | Fly.io Plan | Fly.io Cost | Hatchbox Plan | Hatchbox Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform Fee | None | $0.00 | $10/server x3 | $30.00 |
| Web Servers | shared-cpu-2x 2GB x2 | $23.00 | DigitalOcean 2vCPU / 4GB x2 | $48.00 |
| Worker | shared-cpu-2x 2GB | $11.00 | Runs on web servers | $0.00 |
| PostgreSQL + Redis | Managed Postgres Launch (8GB) + Upstash Redis 1GB | $302.00 | DigitalOcean 2vCPU / 4GB, managed by Hatchbox | $24.00 |
| Postgres Storage & Backups | 20GB @ $0.28/GB | $6.00 | Scheduled backups to S3 | $1.00 |
| Dedicated IPv4 + Egress | $2 IPv4, ~100GB egress | $4.00 | Included with your servers | $0.00 |
| Monthly Total | $346.00 | $103.00 |
Platform Fee
Web Servers
Worker
PostgreSQL + Redis
Postgres Storage & Backups
Dedicated IPv4 + Egress
TOTAL / MONTH
Hobby / Staging Setup
One small app with Postgres and Redis. Fly's cheapest supported Postgres is the $38 managed Basic plan. On Hatchbox, everything runs on a single $12 server — $22/month vs. Fly's ~$49, and you can add more apps to the same box for free.
| Component | Fly.io Plan | Fly.io Cost | Hatchbox Plan | Hatchbox Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform Fee | None | $0.00 | $10/server | $10.00 |
| Web Server | shared-cpu-1x 1GB | $6.00 | DigitalOcean 1vCPU / 2GB | $12.00 |
| PostgreSQL | Managed Postgres Basic (1GB) + 10GB storage | $41.00 | Runs on your server | $0.00 |
| Redis | Upstash pay-as-you-go | $2.00 | Runs on your server | $0.00 |
| Monthly Total | $49.00 | $22.00 |
Platform Fee
Web Server
PostgreSQL
Redis
TOTAL / MONTH
Which one should you pick?
Fly.io is a great fit if…
- Your app genuinely needs to run close to users in many regions at once
- You have bursty workloads that benefit from scale-to-zero machines
- You're comfortable owning a Dockerfile and debugging container deploys
- Usage-based billing works in your favor because traffic is spiky
Hatchbox is a better fit if…
- You want a bill you can predict to the dollar every month
- Your app runs happily in one or two regions on steady servers
- You'd rather skip Docker, fly.toml, and container debugging entirely
- You want root access to servers in your own hosting account, with support included
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
Fly.io vs Hatchbox questions
Still stuck? Ask us directly — a real person who has deployed a lot of Rails apps will answer.
fly launch generates a Dockerfile and fly.toml you maintain. Hatchbox deploys straight from your GitHub repo to plain Ubuntu servers — it detects Rails from your Gemfile, installs the right Ruby, and runs your app as normal processes behind Caddy.
Simple, predictable pricing.
We charge per server, not per app. Run one application or twenty on the same box — the bill doesn't change.
$10
- 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
- 7 day free trial
Ready to make deployments fun again?
Hatchbox has run more than 2 million deploys across 24,000+ applications since 2016. Start a 7 day free trial and put yours on a server you own.