Railway alternatives
xCloud vs Railway: Pricing, Server Control, and Features Compared
Railway is a usage-billed platform for application code; WordPress is a template there, not a product. xCloud is WordPress hosting from $5 a month, flat.
- One flat price per server, with unlimited sites, not CPU, memory, storage and egress metered separately
- Staging push/pull, core and plugin updates, blueprints and magic login built for WordPress
- Files and database backed up together, incrementally, and restored in one click
- Full root access to a server you can clone, move or take with you
- xCloud's managed plans start at $5/month flat for a whole server with unlimited sites; Railway's Hobby plan is $5/month with $5 of metered usage included, and anything above that is billed on top.
Last updated
- 14-day money-back guarantee
- No migration fee, ever
- 4.8 · 390+ reviews on TrustpilotRated by the people already running WordPress on xCloud
Quick verdict
Choose xCloud if…
- You run WordPress and want staging push/pull, core and plugin updates, blueprints and magic login built in.
- You want a flat monthly server price you can predict, not CPU, memory, storage and egress metered separately.
- You want many sites on one server, not two services and two volumes for each.
- You want root access to a server you can move, clone or take elsewhere.
- You want a Docker Compose file to run as written, not translated service by service.
- You want the 7G/8G firewall and Fail2Ban configured for you.
- You want files and database backed up together as one site, and restored in one click.
- You want bulk site and server migration, and a cPanel migration path, included on every plan.
- You want live chat support and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
- You want a white-label reseller programme with your own Stripe billing.
14-day money-back guarantee. Cancel any time.
Free Tiers and Entry Plans, Compared Honestly
Railway's trial credit and Free plan suit a demo: when the credit runs out, services stop. xCloud's free tier covers one real server with no expiry.
1Free tier
| What the free tier includes |  xCloudFree/mo1 server, 10 sites, no expiry |  Railway$0/moFree plan, $1 of usage a month |
|---|---|---|
| Free | ||
| What free covers | Yes. The panel on your first server and ten sites, with no expiry. You pay your cloud provider for the server. | Limited. A one-time $5 trial credit, then a Free plan with $1 of usage a month. No card is needed for the trial. |
| What the free plan can run | Yes. A real server, sized by your provider. No expiry. | Limited. One replica per service, 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB of RAM at most, and 500 MB volumes. |
| When the credit runs out | Yes. Nothing changes. The server stays up. | Limited. Services stop until you upgrade or the credit renews. |
2Paid, always on
| What the entry paid plan includes | xCloud$5/moManaged 1 GB, billed monthly | Railway$5/moHobby, with $5 of metered usage included |
|---|---|---|
| Paid | ||
| What the price covers | Yes. A whole server: 1 GB, 25 GB SSD, 1 TB of bandwidth and unlimited sites, on one bill. | Limited. $5 that is spent as usage credit. Memory, CPU, volumes and egress past it bill on top, by consumption. |
| Subscription before you run anything | Yes. None on your first server. | Limited. Free is $0, Hobby is $5 a month and Pro is $20 a month. Each is spent as usage credit. |
| CPU and memory rates | Yes. Included in the server price. | Limited. About $20 per vCPU and $10 per GB of RAM a month, by consumption. |
| Bandwidth | Yes. 1 TB on the $5 server. | Limited. $0.05 per GB of egress, metered. |
| Persistent storage | Yes. 25 GB SSD on the $5 server. Nothing extra to buy. | Limited. Volumes at about $0.15 per GB a month, with 5 GB the limit on Hobby. |
| Money-back guarantee | Yes. 14 days, cancel any time. | Limited. No refund policy published on the pages checked. |
Pricing
xCloud vs Railway: Pricing Comparison
Railway bills a subscription and then meters usage; xCloud charges per server, with unlimited sites on every paid server.
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
| What you pay for |  xCloud | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Free (first server) | $0 Free · $5 Hobby · $20 Pro |
| Usage credit | Not usage-based | $1 · $5 · $20, spent before you pay |
| Cheapest always-on compute | $5/mo, 1 GB, unlimited sites | Metered from the Hobby credit |
| Memory | Included | About $10/GB/mo |
| CPU | Included | About $20/vCPU/mo |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB on the $5 server | $0.05/GB egress |
| Storage | 25 GB SSD on the $5 server | About $0.15/GB/mo |
Application Platform or WordPress Server?
Railway deploys services from a Git repo, a Docker image or a template, with an environment per pull request. xCloud runs Docker and Node.js too, alongside a WordPress control panel Railway does not have.
| Deployment and stack | xCloud | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | ||
| Deploy from a Git push | Yes. Auto-deploy on push, with branch selection and rollback. | Yes. Auto-deploy from a connected Git repo, its core pitch. |
| Pull-request preview environments | Limited. Not published as a general PR-preview feature. | Yes. A temporary environment per pull request, deleted as soon as it merges or closes. |
| Autoscaling | Limited. Not published. | Yes. Scales vertically up to your plan's limits by default. Replica counts are set by hand. |
| Replicas across regions | Limited. Not published. | Yes. Replicas in several regions, with public traffic routed to the nearest. No sticky sessions. |
| Runs arbitrary Docker applications | Yes. Docker Compose applications, alongside WordPress and the one-click app library. | Yes. Any Docker image or Dockerfile, as a service. |
| Runs a Docker Compose file as written | Yes. Yes. Hosted as written. | No. No. Railway's docs say it does not run docker-compose.yml files directly; each service is recreated by hand. |
| Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go and other non-PHP app hosting | Yes. Node.js, Laravel and Next.js, with queue workers. | Yes. Application services in the languages you deploy. |
| Services that need a volume | Yes. A normal server disk. Nothing to configure. | Limited. One volume per service, no replicas with a volume, and a small downtime on every redeploy. |
| Private networking between services | Limited. Not published. | Yes. Services find each other by internal DNS, over WireGuard-encrypted links. |
| Root access to the underlying server | Yes. Full root on every server. | No. None. Railway runs the machines and you deploy onto them. |
| Deployment regions | Yes. Any region your provider offers. | Limited. Four: California, Virginia, Amsterdam and Singapore. |
Team, Support and What It Costs on Top
Railway's support is a community channel on Free and Hobby, with a slower response on Pro and no email for general enquiries. xCloud includes live chat, and team roles, on every plan.
| Team, support and business model | xCloud | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Getting hold of someone | ||
| Team accounts | Yes. Included on every plan. | Limited. Pro and Enterprise are the collaboration plans. |
| Role-based / granular team permissions | Yes. Scopable to particular servers and actions, and included, not a separate tier. | Limited. Environment-level access control is Enterprise only. |
| Live chat support | Yes. On every plan. | Limited. Not published. |
| Community support (forum / Discord) | Yes. A public Discord and documentation, alongside live chat. | Yes. A public community on Central Station, the main channel on Free and Hobby. |
| Email support | Yes. Included. | Limited. Not offered for general enquiries. Requests go through Central Station. |
| Guaranteed support response | Limited. Not published as a timed guarantee. | Limited. Pro is usually within 72 hours. Business Class starts at $5,000 a month of spend, with a one-hour outage response. |
| White-label reseller programme with your own billing | Yes. A dedicated program, your own Stripe billing. | Limited. Not published. |
Databases and Caching, Side by Side
Railway runs databases as templates, each a service on its own volume. xCloud manages MySQL or MariaDB for WordPress. Neither platform is benchmarked here.
| Databases and caching | xCloud | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Data layer | ||
| Database engines | Yes. MySQL/MariaDB, managed for WordPress, plus external database support. | Yes. Database templates such as Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB and Redis, each a service on its own volume. |
| One-click database provisioning | Yes. One click, for the WordPress-managed MySQL/MariaDB database. | Yes. One click, from a template. |
| External / remote database support | Yes. Connect an external database as a data source. | Limited. Not published. |
| Redis / object caching | Yes. Redis object caching, managed from the panel. | Yes. Redis is one of the database templates. |
Moving a WordPress Site Between xCloud and Railway
Railway has no WordPress-aware export, because it has no concept of a WordPress site — only services and volumes. Migration here is a manual step on both sides.
Moving a WordPress site onto xCloud
xCloud- Yes. Bulk site and server migration, included on every plan
- Yes. A feature of the panel — point it at the source and go
- Yes. cPanel migration path for sites hosted elsewhere
Railway- Limited. No WordPress-aware export. Dump the MariaDB service and copy wp-content off the volume by hand
- Limited. Then import through xCloud's WordPress migration tooling on the way in
What it costs
xCloud- Yes. Nothing. No migration fee, on either route
- Yes. Unlimited number of sites migrated
Railway- Limited. The manual export and import work is the real cost, in time rather than money
- Limited. Usage is metered, so keep the Railway services running only until DNS has moved
What moves cleanly
xCloud- Yes. Files and database together, in one pass, in bulk
- Yes. Migrate Guru, a free WordPress plugin documented as compatible with xCloud
Railway- Yes. Any containerised app, since a Docker image runs the same wherever it is hosted
- Limited. A WordPress site's files and database sit in two services and have to be reassembled
Before you start
xCloud- Limited. Disable 2FA and Cloudflare Bot Fight Mode on the source site first
- Yes. Then migrate, test while DNS still points at your old host, and cut over
Railway- Limited. If moving away from Railway: take a fresh MariaDB dump and copy the volume contents before you cancel. Cancelling stops every deployment in the workspace
Firewalls, Backups and What You Can Restore
Both back up incrementally. Railway does it volume by volume on a schedule you choose; only xCloud backs up a WordPress site's files and database as one.
| Security and backups | xCloud | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Protection and recovery | ||
| 7G / 8G firewall rule sets | Yes. Both rule sets, managed from the panel. | No. Not offered. There is no WordPress layer to apply them to. |
| Fail2Ban integration | Yes. Included, blocking brute-force login attempts automatically. | Limited. Not published. |
| Automatic free SSL certificates | Yes. Every site, automatically. | Yes. Certificates for the domains you attach. |
| Vulnerability scanning | Limited. A $2/site add-on. | Limited. Not published. |
| Environment-level access control | Limited. Not published. | Limited. Restricts who can reach production. Enterprise only. |
| Full-site backup (files and database together) | Yes. One backup covers the whole site, files and database, and restores as one. | Limited. Volumes are backed up one at a time, and a WordPress site's files and MariaDB data sit on separate volumes. |
| Scheduled automated file backups | Yes. Scheduled, alongside full-site backups. | Yes. Daily (kept 6 days), weekly (kept 27) or monthly (kept 89), and several can apply to one volume. |
| Incremental site backup | Yes. Yes. Restore granularity without a full copy each time. | Yes. Yes. Railway's backups are incremental and copy-on-write, and you pay only for data exclusive to them. |
| Backup restore | Yes. One click, from the panel, for the whole site. | Yes. A restore is staged for review, mounts a new volume from the backup, and finishes when you deploy. |
What Happens After WordPress Is Running
Railway can run WordPress from a template, as it can run anything. The difference is everything that happens next: updates, staging, backups scoped to a site.
| WordPress management | xCloud | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Day-to-day WordPress work | ||
| WordPress install | Yes. One click, as a managed, WordPress-aware site. | Limited. A template that deploys WordPress on Apache and a separate MariaDB service. Nothing about it is WordPress-aware afterward. |
| Theme, plugin and core update manager | Yes. Managed from the panel, across every site. | No. Not offered. Updates happen inside the container, by hand. |
| One-click staging | Yes. One click, on the same server or another. | No. Not WordPress-aware. Environments copy services, not a site's content and database. |
| Staging with push/pull | Yes. Promote a tested change rather than redoing it by hand. | No. Not offered. |
| Blueprints — reusable site templates | Yes. Save a site setup and stamp it out repeatedly. | Limited. Not published. Templates deploy a stack, not a configured WordPress site. |
| 1-click magic login to wp-admin | Yes. Into any site's admin, from the panel. | No. Not offered. |
| WordPress Multisite support | Yes. Sub-domain and sub-folder, supported. | Limited. Not published as a supported configuration. |
Refunds, Usage Charges and the Bill You Did Not Expect
What the price does after the first month, and what is not in it. Two boxes below: what each side charges extra for, and what stays free.
Refunds and cancellation
xCloud- Yes. 14-day money-back guarantee
- Yes. Cancel any time, no lock-in contract
Railway- Yes. A no-card trial credit to try it within its limits
- Limited. Cancelling stops all deployments at once, and the plan stays active to the end of the billing cycle
- Limited. Refund terms are on a separate page; confirm on their own site
What costs extra
xCloud- Limited. Vulnerability scanning: a $2/site add-on
- Yes. Migration, team roles and white-labelling: included, not add-ons
- Limited. Your cloud provider's own bill, on the bring-your-own-server route. That line is not ours
Railway- Limited. Memory and CPU past the included credit, by consumption
- Limited. Volume storage at about $0.15 per GB a month, for every service that has one
- Limited. Egress at $0.05 per GB
- Limited. Business Class support, for accounts spending $5,000 a month or more
The full table
Every xCloud and Railway Feature, Side by Side
Every published feature, side by side. 76 of 88 differ.
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
| xCloud | Railway | |
|---|---|---|
| What each platform is | ||
| Product category | WordPress hosting control panel | Usage-billed cloud platform (PaaS) |
| WordPress-aware (updates, staging, backups scoped to a site) | Yes | No |
| Runs arbitrary Docker applications | Yes | Yes |
| Runs a Docker Compose file as written | Yes | No |
| Root access to the underlying server | Yes | No |
| Runs on a server or cloud account you already pay for | Yes | — |
| Deployment regions | Any region your server provider offers | 4: California, Virginia, Amsterdam, Singapore |
| Plans and what they cost | ||
| Free tier | Free: 1 server, 10 sites, no expiry | $5 one-time trial credit, then a Free plan with $1 of usage a month and 0.5 GB of RAM per service |
| Subscription before you run anything | None — the panel is free on your first server | Free $0; Hobby $5/mo; Pro $20/mo |
| Usage credit included | Not usage-based | $1 on Free, $5 on Hobby, $20 on Pro |
| Entry paid compute | $5/mo managed server: 1 GB, 25 GB SSD, unlimited sites | Hobby $5/mo, spent as metered usage; above the credit, usage bills on top |
| Managed server plan, 2 GB | $12/mo flat | No fixed price: about $10 per GB of RAM a month, metered, plus CPU |
| CPU and memory rates | Included in the server price | About $20 per vCPU and $10 per GB of RAM a month, by consumption |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB included on the $5 server | $0.05 per GB of egress, metered |
| Persistent storage | 25 GB SSD included on the $5 server | Volumes at about $0.15/GB/mo; 500 MB on Free, 5 GB on Hobby |
| Fully managed — the provider runs the servers | Yes | Yes |
| Money-back guarantee | 14 days | — |
| Deployment and stack | ||
| Deploy from a Git push | Yes | Yes |
| Pull-request preview environments | — | A temporary environment per pull request |
| Autoscaling | — | Vertical, up to your plan's limits; replicas are set by hand |
| Replicas across regions | — | Yes, with traffic routed to the nearest |
| One-click WordPress install | Yes | Partial |
| Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go and other non-PHP app hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent storage without giving up replicas or zero-downtime deploys | A normal server disk, nothing to configure | One volume per service; no replicas with a volume; a small downtime on redeploy |
| Private networking between services | — | Encrypted with WireGuard, with internal DNS |
| WordPress management | ||
| Theme, plugin and core update manager | Yes | No |
| One-click staging | Yes | No |
| Staging with push/pull | Yes | No |
| Blueprints — reusable site templates | Yes | — |
| 1-click magic login to wp-admin | Yes | No |
| WordPress Multisite support | Yes | — |
| Clone a site to the same or another server | Yes | — |
| WP-CLI | Yes | — |
| Databases | ||
| Supported database engines | MySQL/MariaDB, managed for WordPress | Database templates such as Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB and Redis, each a service on a volume |
| One-click database provisioning | Yes | Yes |
| External / remote database support | Yes | — |
| Redis / object caching | Yes | Yes |
| Security | ||
| 7G / 8G firewall rule sets | Yes | No |
| Fail2Ban integration | Yes | — |
| Automatic free SSL certificates | Yes | Yes |
| Custom SSL/TLS certificates | Yes | — |
| Vulnerability scanning | Add-on, $2/site | — |
| WordPress core-file integrity monitor | Yes | No |
| Environment-level access control | — | Enterprise only |
| Backups and migration | ||
| Full-site backup (files and database together) | Yes | Volume backups only; a WordPress site's files and database are separate volumes |
| Scheduled automated file backups | Yes | Daily (kept 6 days), weekly (27) or monthly (89) |
| Incremental site backup | Yes | Yes |
| Backup restore | Yes | Stage a restore, review it, then deploy; a new volume is mounted from the backup |
| Built-in bulk site and server migration | Yes | — |
| cPanel migration path | Yes | — |
| Team, support and business model | ||
| Team accounts | Yes | Pro and Enterprise are built for collaboration |
| Role-based / granular team permissions | Yes | Environment-level access control is Enterprise only |
| Live chat support | Yes | — |
| Community support (forum / Discord) | Yes | Yes |
| Email support | Yes | Not offered for general enquiries; requests go through Central Station |
| Guaranteed support response | — | Pro: usually within 72 hours; Business Class from $5,000/mo of spend |
| White-label reseller programme with your own billing | Yes | — |
| AI and agent control | ||
| MCP server — drive servers and sites from Claude, Cursor or any AI agent | Yes | Yes |
| Installable AI agent skills (servers, sites, WordPress, SSL, account) | Yes | No |
| AI bot blocker — block AI crawlers and scrapers at the server | Yes | — |
| Public REST API with scoped tokens | Yes | Yes |
| Security and WordPress integrity | ||
| Virtual patching for known vulnerabilities (Site Security PRO) | Add-on, $2/site | — |
| WordPress integrity monitor — verifies core files against checksums | Yes | — |
| Custom security headers (HSTS, CSP) from the panel | Yes | — |
| HTTP basic auth and per-site IP allow/deny | Yes | — |
| SSH lockdown — restrict SSH to trusted IPs, custom port | Yes | — |
| Performance and caching | ||
| Edge full-page cache on a global PoP network | Yes | — |
| Cloudflare Enterprise (330+ PoPs, Enterprise WAF) | Add-on, $5/domain | — |
| HTTP/3 (QUIC) and Brotli compression, one click | Yes | — |
| Per-site PHP-FPM worker tuning and PHP extension manager | Yes | — |
| Auto-healing — restarts MySQL, NGINX, Redis or PHP if it stops | Yes | — |
| MySQL/MariaDB auto-tuning and OPcache control | Yes | — |
| Monitoring and observability | ||
| Broken link monitoring with one-click 301 redirect | Yes | No |
| Site Insights — PHP, MySQL and traffic analytics per site | Yes | — |
| Scheduled PageSpeed / Core Web Vitals monitoring with history | Yes | — |
| Telegram alerts for site, server and team events | Yes | — |
| Native macOS menu-bar app (xCloud Pulse) | Yes | No |
| Developer and deployment | ||
| Browser SSH terminal and command runner | Yes | — |
| One-click deploy from Git with stack auto-detection | Yes | — |
| Docker and Docker Compose application hosting | Yes | Docker; Compose by hand |
| Node.js, Laravel and Next.js hosting with queue workers | Yes | Yes |
| One-click app library | 315 apps | — |
| Supervisor process management and site snapshots | Yes | — |
| Backups, migration and agency tooling | ||
| Off-site backups to your own S3, R2, Backblaze, Wasabi, Google Drive or pCloud | Yes | — |
| Full server clone and server-to-server migration | Yes | — |
| Branded client maintenance reports (PDF) | Yes | — |
| White-label reseller programme with Stripe billing and your own plans | Yes | — |
| Business mailboxes on your own domain | Add-on, $1/mo | — |
Hear what people are saying about us
See why agencies, developers, startups, and growing businesses choose xCloud to power their projects.
xCloud works really well, I am surprised by its performance being this the release version, I have tried many paid platforms such as runcloud, cloudpages or serveravatar, as well as free platforms such as CyberPanel, CloudPanel or Hestia Control Panel and direct competitors such as SpinupWP and FlyWP. Of all those that I have tried, the platform that works best for WordPress is SpinupWP and I believe that xCloud can reach and surpass that development, its roadmap is promising. Congratulations to the xCloud team, I hope they become the leading platform in the segment, it has all the potential to achieve it!
Brian GeovannyI've been with runcloud for the last 3 years. However, after trying xcloud for the last month, I'm switching over. They are on a roll with their setup.
Kevin PinedaI'm moving my servers to xCloud, a cloud control panel by M Asif Rahman and the WPDeveloper team. Their roadmap looks interesting and no, there are no team mates nor API limits with xCloud! #xCloud #wordpress #hosting
Leo KooHow Cloud Nine Web Elevated Client Experience While Streamlining Hosting Operations using xCloud
Ed EllinghamxCloud is like having an expert server team on call — without the big agency costs. It's given me back my time and given my clients peace of mind. Highly recommended for freelancers and small teams who want reliable performance and security.
Dumitru ButucelxCloud isn't just a solution. It's like one of that friend who got your back when you screw things up pretty bad.
Waqar AhmedTrust me when I say, once people explore the potential of xCloud they gonna switch from other panels, just keep delivering the best tech, lots of love for the team 😍😍
Rahul SinghSo far my experience has been smooth like silk. I didn't imagine that configuring and managing a VPS would be so easy. As of today, I have deployed 8 sites. The support is good, and they treat users with respect, even if they ask stupid questions (myself included). For the future, I hope for greater flexibility in scheduled backups and more comprehensive and consistent documentation. I'm sure that within a few months, xCloud will become the leader in its segment. This community is amazing, and the Staff here is super helpful.
Massimo VillaCame from cloudways then to runcloud then to xcloud. Looks like I'm staying here.
Gerson ElI've recently taken all of my Vultr-hosted sites and gotten rid of cPanel for them to substitute it with xCloud. I have to say, I'm really impressed with xCloud so far! The interface is definitely the standout feature for me.
Tony LewisI came from Cloudways and won't go back. Highly impressed with xCloud. Glad I gave them a chance.
Jared McDowellI like xCloud better than RunCloud, but one thing I'll point out is that some years ago RunCloud was hungry for business, the support was outstanding, and the community was active and helped each other. Maybe it was sold, there was a change in management, or they stopped being hungry, but the quality of the RunCloud offering declined and it hasn't been moving forward quickly. My point is that currently the xCloud team has the edge and it is theirs to keep or lose
David McCanHow Kevin Heinrichs Cut Hosting Costs by 84% While Running WooCommerce & Node.js Sites Efficiently
Kevin HeinrichsI had 150 sites on cloudways and am in the process of moving them to xcloud. Much faster and better priced.
Dan SpinozaDear xCloud Team, I have been using xCloud for some time now and am genuinely impressed with its capabilities and the flexibility it offers by allowing users to bring their own VPS for management. It's a fantastic service, and my experience so far has been very positive. Successful migrated 5 sites on a single server. Xcloud migration tool worked great. There were few hiccups with security plugin like MalCare but disabling the plugin prior to migration worked just fine.
Rahil MaknojiaCame from runcloud. Tried xcloud and never came back.
Karl FanegaHow Advanced Web Strategies Saved Over $2,000 & Recovered 56 Hours per Month Managing 70+ Client Websites
Gary MoodyxCloud gave me what no other hosting platform could: the flexibility of a VPS with the convenience of managed WordPress. As a solo founder running an entire business on one server, that combination is an important unfair advantage.
Jorge de los Reyes MartínezI use Server Avatar and xCloud and I'll sooner use xCloud than Server Avatar personally.
Jay PaganoHow Newman Web Solutions Ensured Perfect Uptime and Seamless Scaling For 120+ WordPress Sites with xCloud
Lori NewmanI too have moved over to xCloud. It's pretty sweet. One click n8n and uptime Kuma apps
John ApertureI went from Cloudways to xCloud. No intention on switching in the foreseeable future.
Blaine MooreKeep comparing
Still Weighing Up Other Options?
Every comparison runs the same format: the topic tables, the full feature matrix, the published prices.
Managed hosting
Someone else owns the servers and rents them to you with the stack on top.
See the comparisonxCloud vs Cloudways
Managed cloud hosting on DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS and Google Cloud.
See the comparisonxCloud vs WP Engine
Fully managed WordPress hosting, sold by monthly visitor count.
See the comparisonxCloud vs Kinsta
Premium managed WordPress hosting on Google Cloud, metered three ways.
Considering a switch from Railway?
Ready To Try xCloud Instead?
Start free, bring your own server or ours, and move when you are ready. No contract, no migration fee, root access either way.
- xCloud's managed plans start at $5/month flat for a whole server with unlimited sites; Railway's Hobby plan is $5/month with $5 of metered usage included, and anything above that is billed on top.
- WordPress-specific staging, updates and blueprints
- Files and database backed up together, and restored in one click
- Bulk migration included on every plan
- The 7G/8G firewall and Fail2Ban, configured for you
- Live chat support on every plan
xCloud vs Railway: Frequently Asked Questions
Direct answers to what people ask before choosing between xCloud and Railway.
What is the difference between xCloud and Railway?
Railway is a general application platform; xCloud is a WordPress-specific hosting platform.
Railway deploys services and databases from a Git repo, a Docker image or a template, and bills a subscription plus metered usage. xCloud is built around WordPress: it knows what a site is, so it offers staging push/pull, core and plugin updates, incremental site backups and bulk migration, for a flat per-server price with unlimited sites.
Is Railway free?
Partly. There is a one-time trial credit and a Free plan with a small monthly credit.
A new account gets a one-time $5 trial credit, with no card required. The Free plan is $0 with $1 of usage a month, one replica, 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB of RAM per service, and 500 MB volumes. When the credit runs out, services stop until you upgrade. That suits a demo; a live WordPress site needs a paid plan.
Is xCloud cheaper than Railway?
For WordPress, generally more predictable, because xCloud is one flat price per server and Railway meters four things.
xCloud is free for one server and ten sites, then $5 a month for a managed 1 GB server with 1 TB of bandwidth and unlimited sites. Railway's Hobby plan is $5 a month with $5 of usage included, then memory at about $10 per GB, CPU at about $20 per vCPU, volumes at about $0.15 per GB and egress at $0.05 per GB, all by consumption. A lightly used app can cost less on Railway; an always-on WordPress site with a database usually will not.
Can you host WordPress on Railway?
Yes, from a template, not as a managed product.
Railway's WordPress template deploys WordPress on Apache and a separate MariaDB service. Nothing about the platform is WordPress-aware afterward: no core, theme or plugin update manager, no WordPress staging, no magic login, no 7G/8G firewall rules.
Which is better for WordPress?
xCloud, for any WordPress-specific need. Railway, if WordPress is one small part of an application you are shipping.
xCloud automates the WordPress-specific work: updates, staging, site-level backups and migration. Railway treats WordPress as any other container, which is fine when you also deploy application code there, and a real gap if WordPress is the whole job.
Does Railway support zero-downtime deploys for WordPress?
Not with a volume attached, and WordPress needs one.
Railway's docs state that replicas cannot be used with volumes, that each service can have a single volume, and that there is a small amount of downtime when re-deploying a service with a volume attached, even with a healthcheck configured. A WordPress site keeps its uploads on a volume, so it is a single instance that goes briefly unavailable on each redeploy.
How much does Railway bandwidth cost?
$0.05 per GB of egress, metered.
Derived from that rate, 1 TB of traffic is about $50. xCloud's $5 server includes 1 TB.
Do I get root access on Railway?
No. Railway runs the machines, and you deploy services onto them.
That is the point of a fully managed platform, and it suits many teams. On xCloud you get full root on every server, whether it is on your own cloud account or bundled in a managed plan, so you can install what you want, move the server or leave with it.
Does Railway run Docker Compose files?
No. Its own docs say it does not run docker-compose.yml files directly.
Each service in a Compose file becomes a separate Railway service, and depends_on has no direct equivalent, so your applications must handle connection retries at startup. xCloud hosts Docker Compose applications as written.
What backups does Railway offer?
Incremental volume backups, on a schedule you choose.
Backups can run daily (kept 6 days), weekly (kept 27) or monthly (kept 89), and several schedules can apply to one volume. They are incremental and copy-on-write, and a restore is staged for review before you deploy it. They work volume by volume, so a WordPress site's files and MariaDB data are backed up as separate things. xCloud backs up a site's files and database as one and restores in one click.
What support does Railway include?
Community support on Free and Hobby, and slower-than-chat help on Pro.
Free and Hobby get community support through Central Station with no guaranteed response. Pro gets direct help there, usually within 72 hours. Business Class, with a one-hour response for outages, is for accounts spending $5,000 a month or more. Railway does not offer email support for general enquiries. xCloud includes live chat on every plan.
Can I migrate from Railway to xCloud?
Yes, though it is a manual move rather than a one-click transfer, since the two platforms structure sites differently.
A WordPress site on Railway is a WordPress service and a MariaDB service with volumes; moving it means exporting the files and the database and importing them through xCloud's WordPress migration tooling. There is no automated Railway-specific import.
Railway or Render — and how does xCloud compare to each?
Both are managed application platforms with usage-based billing, and both treat WordPress as just another container.
Against either, xCloud's difference is the same: a WordPress-specific platform with a flat per-server price, root access and site-level tooling. Railway bills a subscription plus usage on CPU, memory, volumes and egress; Render bills a workspace fee plus compute and bandwidth.