Raff Apps wins on fixed monthly ceilings, $0 public egress, full Docker Compose import, first-party managed data services, and a default spend cap. Fly.io wins on 18 global regions, Anycast routing, Machine-level control, flexible autoscaling, and region-specific pay-as-you-go compute that can be cheaper at some resource sizes. Choose Fly.io when multi-region placement and infrastructure control are requirements; choose Raff when us-east, predictable app costs, Compose portability, and a more managed workflow fit the workload. Raff Pro is $27.99/month for 2 vCPU and 4 GB, while Fly.io shared-cpu-2x with 4 GB currently runs about $21.40–$34.56/month across regional price matrices before storage, egress, IP, or support charges.
Among Fly.io alternatives, Raff takes a deliberately different approach to application operations. Fly.io exposes 18 regions, Fly Machines, regional volumes, Anycast networking, and separate metered resources; Raff packages managed services into tiers from $3/month with $0 public app egress and visible monthly ceilings. Fly.io's short trial includes 2 total Machine hours or 7 days, while Raff's paid Micro tier is designed to remain deployed. The decision is less about which platform has more knobs and more about whether the team needs global infrastructure control or a tighter managed-service boundary.
Fly.io vs Raff: which is right for you?
The practical choice is global infrastructure control versus a managed application platform with tighter cost boundaries.
| Decision factor | Choose Raff Apps | Choose Fly.io |
|---|
| Cost model | You want a published monthly ceiling per service | You want regional pay-as-you-go Machine pricing |
| Entry service | You want 0.25 vCPU / 512 MB for $3/month | You want 1 shared CPU / 512 MB at about $3.19–$5.16/month by region |
| Geography | One public us-east region fits | You need placement across 18 regions |
| Bandwidth | Public application egress should cost $0 | $0.02–$0.12/GB internet egress is acceptable |
| Deployment | GitHub, buildpacks, Dockerfile, image, or full Compose import fits | flyctl, fly.toml, Machines, and APIs fit |
| Persistent state | App volumes plus 5 managed data engines fit | Regional Fly Volumes and Managed Postgres fit |
| Scaling | Managed service tiers and scale-to-zero fit | Autostop/autostart and programmable metrics scaling are required |
Fly.io is stronger when region placement, Anycast routing, and Machine-level behavior are part of the application architecture. Raff is stronger when the workload fits us-east and the team wants fewer infrastructure decisions, predictable service ceilings, and $0 public app egress.
Fly.io overview
Fly.io is a developer-focused public cloud built around Fly Machines. It turns application containers into hardware-isolated virtual machines and exposes them through flyctl, fly.toml, the Machines API, private networking, volumes, and a global Anycast network.
Fly.io currently lists 18 application regions across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and Africa. Machines and Fly Volumes are tied to the region where they are created, while Fly Proxy and Anycast networking can route traffic across globally distributed application instances.
Fly.io supports two documented autoscaling models. Autostop/autostart starts or stops an existing pool of Machines based on traffic; it does not create new Machines. Metrics-based autoscaling can create, delete, start, or stop Machines based on a metric the team defines, with the reconciliation loop running every 15 seconds by default.
Stopped or suspended Machines do not incur CPU and RAM charges, but stopped Machine root filesystems and provisioned volumes can remain billable. This can reduce compute cost for sporadic workloads while increasing the importance of understanding Machine state, regional capacity, storage, and minimum-running settings.
Fly.io's current free trial includes 2 total Machine hours or 7 days, whichever comes first, with up to 10 Machines, 20 GB of volume storage, 2 vCPUs per Machine, and 4 GB of memory per Machine. It is an evaluation period, not a permanent free production tier.
Raff overview
Raff Apps is Raff's managed application platform for deploying source code and containers without administering the underlying operating system. It supports GitHub push-to-deploy, Dockerfiles, existing images, buildpacks, and full Docker Compose imports.
Raff Apps supports public web services, private services, long-running workers, timezone-aware cron jobs, one-off jobs, pull-request preview environments, persistent application volumes, immutable revisions, one-click rollback, and scale-to-zero behavior. Applications can connect to Raff Managed Databases for PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse, and Kafka, plus object storage, VMs, private networking, Kubernetes, and Functions.
Current service tiers are:
| Tier | vCPU | RAM | Ephemeral disk | Monthly ceiling |
|---|
| Micro | 0.25 | 512 MB | 2 GB | $3.00 |
| Starter | 0.5 | 1 GB | 5 GB | $6.99 |
| Standard | 1 | 2 GB | 10 GB | $16.99 |
| Pro | 2 | 4 GB | 20 GB | $27.99 |
| Pro Max | 4 | 8 GB | 40 GB | $61.99 |
| Scale | 8 | 16 GB | 80 GB | $119.99 |
Runtime is billed per second against each published monthly ceiling. Public application egress and Apps team seats cost $0, and the spend cap is enabled by default.
From Raff's side, the pricing rule we use is simple: cost protection should exist before the first production traffic spike. That is why the service ceiling and default spend cap are part of the product model rather than optional cost controls a small team has to configure after deployment.
Raff currently exposes one public Apps region, us-east. Raff reports 3,000+ customers, 15,000+ production VMs, and a 99.9% platform SLA. On August 16, 2026, Raff was rated 4.5/5, with G2 at 4.6/5.
Fly.io pricing vs Raff pricing
Fly.io and Raff both meter runtime at a fine-grained level, but the pricing structures answer different questions. Raff asks the team to choose a service tier with a published monthly ceiling. Fly.io prices a running Machine from a regional CPU/RAM preset, then adds separately priced storage, snapshots, networking, databases, IP addresses, certificates, or support when used.
| Buying position | Raff Apps | Fly.io | Decision signal |
|---|
| 512 MB service | Micro — 0.25 vCPU / 512 MB / $3 | shared-cpu-1x / 512 MB — about $3.19–$5.16 | Fly includes more listed shared CPU; Raff has one ceiling |
| 1 GB service | Starter — 0.5 vCPU / 1 GB / $6.99 | shared-cpu-1x / 1 GB — about $5.70–$9.20 | Fly may be lower or higher by region |
| 2 GB service | Standard — 1 vCPU / 2 GB / $16.99 | shared-cpu-1x / 2 GB — about $10.70–$17.28 | Published CPU labels are not benchmark equivalence |
| 2 CPU / 4 GB service | Pro — 2 vCPU / 4 GB / $27.99 | shared-cpu-2x / 4 GB — about $21.40–$34.56 | Fly may be lower or higher before add-ons |
| Technical support | Included direct cloud support | Community included; Standard $29/month | Paid Fly support can exceed small compute spend |
Comparison class: these rows compare published resource shapes and current regional price matrices, not measured application throughput. Fly.io distinguishes shared and performance CPU classes and varies compute prices by region; Raff Apps does not publish an equivalent Fly CPU-class taxonomy.
Bandwidth cost math
Fly.io meters public internet egress by region group at $0.02/GB from North America and Europe, $0.04/GB from Asia-Pacific, Oceania, and South America, and $0.12/GB from Africa and India. Raff Apps public application egress is $0.
| Monthly public egress | Raff Apps | Fly.io NA / Europe | Fly.io APAC / Oceania / South America | Fly.io Africa / India |
|---|
| 1 TiB | $0 | $20.48 | $40.96 | $122.88 |
| 5 TiB | $0 | $102.40 | $204.80 | $614.40 |
| 10 TiB | $0 | $204.80 | $409.60 | $1,228.80 |
The calculations use 1 TiB = 1,024 GB and include only public egress. They exclude compute, volumes, snapshots, cross-region private transfer, IP addresses, databases, support, certificates, and taxes.
Automated backups
Fly Volumes cost $0.15/GB-month and new volumes receive automatic daily block-level snapshots with 5 days of retention by default. Snapshot storage costs $0.08/GB-month, with the first 10 GB free each month, and retention can be configured from 1 to 60 days. Fly.io explicitly warns that daily snapshots may not contain the latest data and recommends a separate backup plan for important state.
Fly.io Managed Postgres includes high availability, backups, and connection pooling on every current plan; Basic starts at $38/month for Shared-2x and 1 GB RAM plus $0.28 per provisioned GB-month of database storage.
Raff also separates application revision rollback from durable-data backup. Immutable app revisions help recover a deployment, but persistent volumes, managed databases, and object storage still need recovery policies appropriate to the data they hold.
Fly.io's current pay-as-you-go model can add several resource lines beyond a running Machine: Volumes at $0.15/GB-month, snapshot storage at $0.08/GB-month after the first 10 GB, dedicated IPv4 at $2/month, paid support from $29/month, and public egress at $0.02–$0.12/GB by region group. Managed SSL is free for the first 10 single-hostname certificates, then $0.10/month each; wildcard certificates are $1/month.
Fly.io offers a 40% compute discount through eligible prepaid Machine reservations. Those reservations are specific to a region and CPU class, and unused monthly reservation credit does not roll over. That can improve Fly.io economics for stable workloads but is a different commitment model from on-demand comparison pricing.
Bandwidth and transfer policy
Fly.io charges for traffic leaving an application to the public internet and for private traffic crossing regions. Under its granular rates, private cross-region transfer is currently $0.006/GB in North America and Europe, $0.015/GB in Asia-Pacific, Oceania, and South America, and $0.05/GB in Africa and India. Inbound traffic is free, and same-region transfer between apps or Machines is free within the documented granular-rate model.
Raff Apps prices public application egress at $0. For public APIs, downloads, or products with unpredictable outbound traffic, that removes a variable charge from the app bill. Fly.io is stronger when its global region placement and Anycast design are worth the transfer complexity, particularly when most application and data traffic stays local to each region.
A distributed Fly.io design should model both internet egress and cross-region private traffic. A centralized Raff Apps design should instead model the latency implications of keeping the application in one public us-east region.
Feature comparison: Fly.io vs Raff
| Feature | Raff Apps | Fly.io |
|---|
| Entry managed service | $3/month | 512 MB shared Machine about $3.19–$5.16/month by region |
| Public regions | 1 — us-east | 18 |
| Primary deployment workflow | Visual platform + GitHub | CLI-first with flyctl and fly.toml |
| Dockerfile / image | Yes | Yes |
| Full Docker Compose import | Yes | No whole-stack Compose import |
| Persistent app storage | Yes | Fly Volumes at $0.15/GB-month |
| Public app egress | $0 | $0.02–$0.12/GB by region group |
| Scale-to-zero behavior | Available | Autostop/autostart existing Machines |
| Metrics-based autoscaling | Not published as an equivalent Apps control | Creates/deletes or starts/stops Machines |
| Managed PostgreSQL | Yes | Yes, from $38/month + storage |
| Managed MySQL | Yes | No first-party Fly Managed MySQL product documented |
| Managed Redis-compatible engine | Valkey | Upstash is a partnered extension |
| Object storage | Raff S3-compatible Object Storage | Tigris is a partnered extension |
| Included direct technical support | Yes | Community; paid email support from $29/month |
Fly.io wins on global placement, Anycast networking, Machine-level control, performance CPU options, and programmable scaling. Raff wins on simpler fixed service ceilings, full Docker Compose import, $0 public app egress, first-party MySQL/Valkey choices, and included direct support.
Features and reliability: Raff vs Fly.io
This comparison includes 0 controlled Raff-versus-Fly.io application benchmarks, so it does not declare either platform faster. A valid application test would need the same image, CPU scheduling class, memory, region, storage path, datastore placement, concurrency profile, network route, and repeated measurement window.
Region placement and routing
Fly.io's clearest reliability and latency advantage is geographic control. Teams can place Machines in 18 regions, and the global Anycast network can route incoming connections toward deployed instances. This is materially stronger than Raff Apps' current single public us-east region for products serving users across several continents.
That flexibility moves more architecture responsibility to the team. Machines and volumes are regional, so application state, database topology, request routing, and failover behavior need to match the chosen placement model.
Autoscaling and stopped Machines
Fly Proxy autostop/autostart starts and stops an existing Machine pool according to traffic and concurrency. Stopped or suspended Machines do not accrue CPU or RAM charges, though their root filesystems and attached volumes can remain billable.
Fly.io's metrics-based autoscaler goes further by creating/deleting or starting/stopping Machines using user-defined metrics, with a 15-second default reconciliation loop. This is more programmable than Raff's public Apps scaling surface and is a genuine advantage for infrastructure-aware teams.
Persistent state and snapshots
Fly Volumes are hardware-local, regional persistent NVMe storage. Fly.io takes daily block-level snapshots with 5-day default retention, but explicitly recommends an independent backup plan for important data. A snapshot can restore into a new equal-or-larger volume; it does not turn a local volume into globally shared storage.
Raff Apps supports persistent application volumes and also provides managed databases and object storage. On both platforms, stateful reliability requires matching the storage layer to the workload rather than treating application rollback as data protection.
Managed database reliability
Fly.io Managed Postgres includes high availability, backups, connection pooling, and replicated storage. It is available in 12 regions and currently starts at $38/month + $0.28/GB-month of provisioned storage.
Raff exposes five managed data engines—PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse, and Kafka—inside the same cloud workflow. Fly.io has the stronger distributed Postgres geography; Raff has the broader first-party engine set for this comparison.
SLA and support
Fly.io's current 99.9% uptime SLA is part of its Enterprise support plan, which starts at $2,500+/month. Standard support is $29/month and Premium is $199/month; community support remains free.
Raff publishes a 99.9% platform SLA and includes direct cloud support without a separate entry support subscription. Public review evidence is also different: on August 16, 2026, Fly.io's unclaimed Trustpilot profile showed 2.8/5, while Raff's claimed profile showed 4.5/5. Review counts are small enough that neither score should substitute for architecture or support evaluation.
When you should choose Fly.io over Raff
Choose Fly.io when:
- Global placement is required. Fly.io lists 18 regions versus Raff Apps' single public
us-east region.
- Anycast routing is part of the design. Fly Proxy supports globally routed applications across regional Machine deployments.
- Machine-level control matters. Fly exposes shared/performance CPU classes, memory, regional placement,
fly.toml, flyctl, and the Machines API.
- Programmable autoscaling is required. Metrics-based scaling can create, delete, start, or stop Machines with a 15-second default loop.
- Sporadic workloads benefit from stopped compute. Stopped/suspended Machines incur $0 CPU and RAM charges, though storage remains billable.
- Regional Managed Postgres matters. Fly Managed Postgres is available in 12 regions and includes HA and backups.
- Prepaying for stable compute is acceptable. Eligible Machine reservations provide a 40% discount for a specific region and CPU class.
When you should choose Raff over Fly.io
Choose Raff Apps when:
- A visible monthly ceiling matters. Raff tiers run from $3 to $119.99/month with per-second prorating against the ceiling.
- Public egress is material. Raff Apps charges $0 for public egress versus Fly.io's $0.02–$0.12/GB regional rates.
- Docker Compose describes the stack. Raff can import a full Compose stack instead of translating it into Fly-specific configuration.
- A broader first-party managed data set is useful. Raff exposes 5 managed engines: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse, and Kafka.
- Support should not be a separate subscription. Fly.io technical support starts at $29/month; Raff includes direct cloud support.
- A default spend guardrail matters. Raff enables the Apps spend cap by default in addition to service ceilings.
- The workload fits
us-east. Fly.io's 18-region advantage adds little when one eastern-U.S. application region already meets the latency requirement.
Raff currently supports 3,000+ customers and 15,000+ production VMs. For adjacent app-platform decisions, compare Render and Raff, Coolify and Raff, and DigitalOcean App Platform and Raff.
Migrating from Fly.io to Raff
- Inventory the Fly.io organization. Record apps, process groups, Machines, CPU/memory sizes, regions, volumes, secrets, certificates, IPs, private-network dependencies, Managed Postgres, extensions, and every
fly.toml file. Gotcha: fly.toml is provider-specific and cannot be imported as a Raff service definition.
- Map Fly processes to Raff services. Move HTTP processes to web services, internal processes to private services, consumers to workers, scheduled tasks to cron jobs, and administrative commands to one-off jobs.
- Choose a portable deployment source. Connect GitHub, deploy an image, use a Dockerfile or buildpack, or convert a multi-service stack into Docker Compose. Gotcha: Fly autostop, concurrency, regional placement, and Machine-count rules need to be redesigned rather than copied verbatim.
- Export persistent state. Use database-native export/restore tools for PostgreSQL and synchronize files from every Fly Volume. Move durable shared uploads to object storage where multiple app instances need access.
- Recreate configuration and verify. Add secrets, domains, private bindings, health checks, volumes, managed data services, callbacks, and outbound allowlists. Validate on a temporary hostname and rehearse a restore before production cutover.
- Cut over with rollback. Lower DNS TTL to 300 seconds, complete the final data synchronization, update DNS, callbacks, and allowlists, monitor the Raff deployment, and retain Fly.io until the rollback window closes.
Stateless containerized services are usually the simplest part of the move. Stateful volumes, Managed Postgres, Anycast assumptions, cross-region traffic, fixed outbound IPs, and Fly-specific scaling rules create most of the migration risk.
About Fly.io
Fly.io is operated by Fly.io, Inc., a developer-focused public cloud founded in 2017 and based in Chicago. It runs containerized applications as hardware-isolated Fly Machines across 18 regions, with Anycast networking, regional volumes, Managed Postgres, APIs, and Fly Kubernetes. Current Fly.io terms identify Fly.io, Inc. as the contracting entity.
Conclusion: Fly.io or Raff?
The Fly.io-versus-Raff decision resolves across four measured axes: cost boundary, global placement, state and recovery, and operational control.
- Cost boundary: Raff Pro is $27.99/month at 2 vCPU / 4 GB with $0 public app egress; Fly.io's comparable published shared-cpu-2x / 4 GB shape is about $21.40–$34.56/month by region before separate storage, egress, IP, or support charges.
- Global placement: Fly.io offers 18 application regions and Anycast routing; Raff Apps currently exposes one public
us-east region.
- State and recovery: Fly Volumes cost $0.15/GB-month with daily snapshots and 5-day default retention; Raff combines persistent app volumes with five first-party managed data engines and object storage.
- Operational control: Fly.io exposes Machines,
fly.toml, APIs, regional networking, and programmable autoscaling; Raff emphasizes GitHub deployment, full Compose import, service ceilings, a default spend cap, and included support.
Choose Fly.io when multi-region placement, Anycast routing, Machine control, or programmable scaling are required. Choose Raff when us-east is sufficient and the team values predictable service ceilings, $0 public egress, Docker Compose portability, first-party managed data options, and a more managed operating model.
Raff currently reports 3,000+ customers, 15,000+ production VMs, Trustpilot 4.5/5, G2 4.6/5, and a 99.9% platform SLA.
