Architecture Recommendation
Answer five questions. Get a concrete, opinionated infrastructure recommendation with the full stack: compute, database, auth, CDN, storage, and a migration trigger.
Monthly active users
Team size
Database needs
Special requirements
Railway
Managed PaaSShip in minutes. Pay almost nothing. Don't touch servers.
At this stage, ops overhead is your biggest enemy. Railway lets you deploy from Git with zero infrastructure knowledge, has a built-in Postgres and Redis option, and costs almost nothing until you have real users. You can always migrate when Railway becomes the bottleneck, not before.
Recommended stack
Compute
Railway
Git-push deploys, instant preview environments, $5-20/mo for a typical early-stage app
Database
Neon (Postgres)
Serverless Postgres with a free tier; scales to zero between requests
Auth
Supabase Auth or Clerk
Both have generous free tiers; don't build your own auth at this stage
CDN
Cloudflare (free)
Global CDN, DDoS protection, and DNS for free; always the right call early on
Storage
Cloudflare R2
Free 10 GB, then $0.015/GB; no egress fees unlike S3
When to upgrade
Migrate to Fly.io or GCP Cloud Run when your Railway bill exceeds $100/mo, you need global edge routing, or you require custom networking.
Avoid at this stage
- Kubernetes at any form at this stage
- AWS EC2 or RDS directly (too much ops, too expensive early)
- Multi-region before you have users in multiple regions
- Building your own auth or file storage
- Anything that says "Enterprise" in the pricing page
Want the actual dollar numbers?
Run your workload through the Cloud Cost Estimator for a 12-month projection across AWS, GCP, and Azure.
Recommendations are based on typical workload patterns and current pricing as of April 2026. Actual cost and performance may vary. Verify pricing with each provider before committing.
How it works
Describe your project
Select your current MAU range, team size, database needs, and any special requirements like compliance or multi-region.
Get an opinionated recommendation
A rules-based engine maps your inputs to the right infrastructure tier: PaaS, serverless cloud, or full cloud with Kubernetes.
See your full stack
Every layer is covered: compute, database, auth, CDN, and storage. Plus a clear migration trigger so you know when to level up.
Infrastructure tiers
Managed PaaS
Railway, Fly.io
Under 10K MAU, small team, no compliance requirements. Fastest time to production, lowest ops overhead.
Serverless Cloud
GCP Cloud Run
10K-500K MAU, growing team, needs GCP ecosystem. Scales automatically, no cluster to manage.
Full Cloud
GCP (GKE), AWS (ECS/EKS)
500K+ MAU, dedicated platform engineer, compliance requirements, or multi-region deployments.
Compare PaaS costs in detail
Fly.io vs Railway vs Render vs DigitalOcean, priced for your exact workload.
PaaS Comparison →Get the actual cloud cost numbers
12-month cost projection across AWS, GCP, and Azure with growth modeling.
Cloud Cost Estimator →