Fly.io alternative

orkestr vs Fly.io

Fly.io gives you cheap machines in a lot of cities and expects you to run them. orkestr gives you a managed platform in the EU and runs it for you.

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The short version

  • Fly.io machines are cheap ($7.73/mo for 1 GB in Frankfurt), but Managed Postgres starts at $38/mo. On orkestr Pro, Postgres and Redis are included in the €15 seat.
  • Fly.io has no free allowance for new accounts, just a short trial. orkestr has a free tier.
  • Fly.io is closer to the metal: machines, volumes, flyctl. orkestr is git push and done.
  • Fly.io wins on global regions and multi-region latency.

Quick comparison

orkestrFly.io
CompanyEU company (Romania), EU sub-processors onlyFly.io, Inc. (US)
EU regionsGermany, Finland, FranceAmsterdam, Stockholm, Paris, Frankfurt, London
Free tierYes: 1 app + Postgres or Redis, sleeps after 30 min idleNo. Trial is 2 machine-hours or 7 days
Pricing model€15/seat/mo, flat. Compute, 2 add-ons and 1 TB bandwidth includedPer machine-second + volumes + egress, support plans extra
Always-on 1 GB appIncluded in Pro$7.73/mo (shared-cpu-1x, fra)
PostgresIncluded in Pro (512 MB RAM)Managed Postgres from $38/mo (1 GB) + $0.28/GB storage
RedisIncluded in Pro (256 MB RAM)Upstash: pay per request, or $10/mo fixed (250 MB)
Bandwidth1 TB on Pro, then €0.10/GB$0.02/GB (NA and EU)
Deploy flowgit push, auto-detect or Dockerfileflyctl deploy from a Dockerfile
PR previewsPR preview deploys on every planVia a GitHub Action you set up
SupportIncludedCommunity free, Standard $29/mo

Fly.io prices from their public pricing pages, last checked . All prices exclude VAT.

Cheap machines, priced-up managed services

Fly.io has some of the cheapest compute and egress around. A 1 GB machine in Frankfurt is under $8 a month and bandwidth is $0.02/GB. If all you run is stateless containers and you are happy operating them, that is hard to beat.

The jump comes with state. Managed Postgres starts at $38/mo, Redis is a partner product billed separately, and email support is $29/mo. On orkestr Pro all of that is covered by one €15 seat.

Platform vs infrastructure

Fly.io gives you machines, volumes, private networking and a CLI, and lets you assemble the platform. orkestr is the assembled platform: connect a repo, we detect the framework, build, deploy, attach a database and give you preview URLs per pull request. Less to configure, and less to tune.

Being straight about one gap: orkestr does not have an always-on background worker service today. Queue consumers run inside your web process, or as scheduled and one-off jobs. If your app needs a separate long-running worker, factor that in.

What a small production app costs

One web app with ~1 GB of RAM, always on. A small managed Postgres, a small managed Redis, a few scheduled jobs, ~100 GB of egress a month, one developer.

orkestr

  • Pro seat (compute, crons, 1 TB bandwidth)€15
  • Web app, 0.5 vCPU / 1 GBincluded
  • Postgres add-on (512 MB RAM)included
  • Redis add-on (256 MB RAM)included
  • 100 GB egressincluded
Total / month€15

Fly.io

  • Machine shared-cpu-1x, 1 GB (fra)$7.73
  • Managed Postgres Basic (1 GB) + 1 GB storage$38.28
  • Upstash Redis fixed, 250 MB$10
  • 100 GB egress at $0.02/GB$2
Total / month$58.01

Fly.io in USD, orkestr in EUR, both excl. VAT. No Fly.io support plan included. You can run Postgres yourself on a Fly machine with a volume for a few dollars, but then backups, upgrades and failover are yours to operate.

When Fly.io is the better pick

We'd rather you pick the right tool than churn in a month. Stay on Fly.io if:

  • You need your app close to users on several continents at once.
  • You want machine-level control: custom VM sizes, GPUs, volumes you manage.
  • You run stateless services only and are comfortable operating them yourself.
  • You need more than 1 GB of RAM per container on a self-serve plan.

Common questions

Can I keep my Dockerfile from Fly.io?
Yes. If the repo has a Dockerfile we build it as-is. fly.toml settings like the internal port and env vars map to project settings and environment variables.
Is orkestr multi-region like Fly.io?
No. orkestr runs in the EU only (Germany, Finland, France). That is the point for most of our users, but if you need your app in North America or Asia too, Fly.io is the better fit.
How do I move a Fly Postgres database?
Proxy to it with flyctl, take a pg_dump, and pg_restore into your orkestr Postgres add-on. The add-on connection string is injected into your app.
Is there a free tier?
Yes. Starter is free with no expiry: one app, a Postgres or Redis add-on, a custom domain and PR previews. It sleeps after 30 minutes idle.

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