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How They Work
Railway
Railway is a modern PaaS that deploys your code with minimal configuration. Push to GitHub or run railway up, and Railway builds and deploys your application. Add services like Postgres or Redis through their dashboard.
This is useful when you want fast deployments without infrastructure complexity. Railway handles hosting, but everything runs on their managed platform.
Encore
Encore provisions infrastructure in your cloud account based on your application code. You define databases, Pub/Sub, and other resources as TypeScript or Go objects. When you deploy, Encore creates the corresponding AWS or GCP resources.
This is useful when you want infrastructure ownership, need native cloud services (RDS, SQS, S3), or want built-in observability. Resources run in your own AWS or GCP account.
Infrastructure Ownership
The main difference is where your infrastructure lives. Railway manages everything on their platform. Encore provisions resources in an AWS or GCP account you control.
With Encore, you can see your databases in the AWS Console, set up VPC peering, configure IAM policies, and use any AWS/GCP service alongside your Encore resources. Your data stays in accounts you own.
With Railway, infrastructure is abstracted away. This is simpler if you don't need direct cloud access, but limits options if you need specific AWS/GCP features or compliance controls.
Learn more about infrastructure ownership →Local Development
Railway has no built-in local development solution. You typically run Docker containers locally or connect to remote Railway databases during development, which can slow down your workflow.
Encore runs encore run and automatically provisions local PostgreSQL, Pub/Sub emulation, and cron scheduling. A local dashboard shows distributed tracing and architecture diagrams.
Encore's integrated local development means faster iteration cycles and the same environment locally as in production.
Learn more about local development →Automatic Infrastructure
Railway lets you add databases through their dashboard, but for Pub/Sub, queues, and advanced cron jobs, you need external services. This means managing multiple providers and connection configurations.
Encore provisions infrastructure from your code. Declare a database as a TypeScript object, and Encore creates RDS or Cloud SQL when you deploy. Same for Pub/Sub, cron jobs, and object storage.
import { SQLDatabase } from "encore.dev/storage/sqldb";
const db = new SQLDatabase("users", {
migrations: "./migrations",
});
// Encore provisions RDS/Cloud SQL automaticallyDatabases, Pub/Sub, Cron Jobs, Object Storage, and more. See all primitives →
Built-in Observability
Railway provides basic logging through their dashboard. For distributed tracing, metrics, and advanced observability, you need to integrate external tools like Datadog or Honeycomb yourself.
Encore includes distributed tracing, metrics, and structured logging out of the box. Every request is traced across services automatically. No instrumentation code needed.
This works locally too. Run your app and get full tracing in the local development dashboard.
See observability docs →AI-Assisted Development
With Railway, infrastructure configuration happens in their dashboard or through separate config files. AI agents like Cursor and Claude Code lack context about how these relate to your application code, leading to drift, hallucinations, and configs that are hard to review.
Encore defines infrastructure as TypeScript objects alongside your application code. AI agents see everything in one context: your APIs, databases, queues, and how they connect. This makes AI-generated code accurate, reviewable, and safe to deploy.
Built-in guardrails, auto-documentation, and observability ensure your systems stay maintainable, even when AI writes most of the code.
Learn about AI-assisted development →Customer stories
See how teams are shipping faster with Encore.
"Encore is our foundation for all new development. Since adopting it, we've seen a 2-3x increase in development speed."
"Encore is an unfair advantage. At Pave we've moved 2x faster than we did at Monzo."
"We've reduced time spent on DevOps by 95%, and we're now on track to save $60K annually."
Feature Comparison
See how Encore and Railway differ across key capabilities.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about Encore vs Railway.
Encore provisions infrastructure in your own AWS or GCP account with built-in observability, automatic IAM, and infrastructure-from-code. Railway runs your apps on their managed platform, meaning you don't own your infrastructure and need to configure observability separately.
Encore is purpose-built for backend development with built-in databases, Pub/Sub, cron jobs, and distributed tracing out of the box. Railway is a general-purpose PaaS with basic Postgres support but requires external services for Pub/Sub and has limited cron capabilities. For TypeScript or Go backends, Encore provides a significantly better developer experience.
No, Railway runs all infrastructure on their own platform, creating vendor lock-in. Encore deploys to your own AWS or GCP account, giving you full ownership, compliance control, and the ability to use native cloud services like RDS, SQS, and S3.
Encore provides automatic local development with databases, Pub/Sub, and distributed tracing included with a single command. Railway has no built-in local development solution, requiring you to set up Docker containers or connect to remote Railway databases for local testing.
Encore provides infrastructure ownership in your cloud account, built-in observability with distributed tracing, automatic IAM policies, type-safe APIs, and auto-generated documentation. Railway requires manual configuration for observability, locks you into their platform, and can get expensive at scale.
Encore deploys to your AWS or GCP account using native cloud services that scale efficiently. Railway's pricing model can become expensive at scale since you pay for their managed infrastructure layer. With Encore, you pay cloud providers directly and get better cost predictability as you grow.