Most pricing pages quote the web process on its own. A real app also needs a Postgres database and usually a cache, and the database is often the line that decides the bill.
This post prices that whole stack on seven developer platforms: Ownkube, Northflank, DigitalOcean, Railway, Fly.io, Render and Heroku. Competitor figures are approximate, mapped to each provider's nearest public tier as charted on our homepage on 2026-10-02. Prices move, so check each provider's pricing page before you commit.
TL;DR
- For a 1 vCPU / 1 GiB web app at steady load, a 1 GiB Postgres with 10 GB of storage and a small cache, the monthly total runs from about $27 on Ownkube to about $89 on Heroku.
- Northflank (about $37) and DigitalOcean (about $42) come closest to Ownkube. Railway lands around $44, and Fly.io and Render in the high $50s.
- The database moves the ranking more than the web app does. Fly.io has the cheapest web process here and still finishes fifth, because its managed Postgres starts at $38.
- Metered compute rewards quiet apps. On Ownkube the same stack costs about $22 when the app idles and about $34 when it runs hot, which is still under Northflank's flat figure.
- Run your own sizes on the homepage calculator or the cost calculator.
What stack are we pricing?
We picked the shape most small production apps settle into after a few months.
The web app gets 1 vCPU and 1 GiB of memory, always on, averaging 40% CPU. That covers a Rails, Django, Next.js or Express API with moderate traffic.
Postgres gets 1 GiB of memory and 10 GB of storage, enough for a few million rows and their indexes. The cache is the smallest Redis or Valkey instance each platform offers, for sessions, rate limits or a job queue.
We left out bandwidth, build minutes and log retention. They matter at scale, and they vary too much from app to app to price fairly in one table. Backups get a note further down, since each platform bundles them differently.
How much does each platform charge for the whole stack?
| Platform | Web app | Postgres | Cache | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ownkube | $11.70 | $10.50 | $5.00 | $27.20 |
| Northflank | $18.00 | $13.50 | $5.40 | $36.90 |
| DigitalOcean | $12.00 | $15.15 | $15.00 | $42.15 |
| Railway | $18.00 | $17.50 | $8.00 | $43.50 |
| Fly.io | $5.92 | $40.80 | $10.00 | $56.72 |
| Render | $25.00 | $22.00 | $10.00 | $57.00 |
| Heroku | $50.00 | $9.00 | $30.00 | $89.00 |
Approximate monthly list prices in USD, mapped to each provider's nearest public tier as charted on 2026-10-02. Metered platforms (Ownkube and Railway) are priced at 40% average CPU. Taxes and bandwidth excluded.
Heroku: the cheapest database, the priciest everything else
Essential-1 Postgres at $9 is the lowest database line in the table. Heroku gets there by sharing memory across Essential databases and capping storage at 10 GB. The web dyno and the cache then push the total to the top.
If you are leaving Heroku over price, our Heroku pricing and alternatives guide walks through the move.
Fly.io: the cheapest web app, the priciest Postgres
A shared-CPU Machine for the web app is cheap. Fly's Managed Postgres starts at $38 a month on its Basic plan, with high availability included. That is more database than this stack needs, and more than any other platform here charges for it.
Render: every piece is a fixed instance
Fixed instances make the bill predictable, and for a small app the predictable number is high. A 1 CPU web service, a 1 GB Postgres instance and a Key Value instance add up to the high $50s.
Railway: everything is metered, including the database
Railway bills memory and CPU by usage, so the Postgres line follows how much memory the database holds. For Postgres that is most of it, all the time. The cache works the same way.
Our Railway pricing breakdown covers the meter in detail.
Which platforms come closest to Ownkube?
Northflank and DigitalOcean are both honest competitors on price, and neither is far behind.
Northflank has the cheapest per-vCPU rate in this group, so if your app is CPU-heavy and memory-light, its compute line can beat ours. The full stack still comes out ahead on Ownkube because the database and cache run on flat, near-cost boxes, while Northflank bills them as separate services on top of compute. Our Railway, Render and Northflank comparison goes deeper on how Northflank fits a platform team.
DigitalOcean App Platform plus a Managed PostgreSQL node is a solid, predictable pair. Its 1 GiB database includes 10 GiB of storage, which matches this stack exactly. It falls behind on the cache: its smallest managed caching instance is about $15 a month in this comparison, against $5 for the Ownkube cache box.
What changes when the app is idle or busy?
The table assumes a steady 40% CPU. Real apps rarely sit there, and on metered billing the total moves with the load.
| Load | Ownkube | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Mostly idle (10% CPU) | about $21.80 | about $37.50 |
| Steady (40% CPU) | about $27.20 | about $43.50 |
| Busy (80% CPU) | about $34.40 | about $51.50 |
Flat-priced platforms (Northflank as charted, DigitalOcean, Fly.io, Render and Heroku) cost the same whatever the load, because you pay for the instance size.
So a side project that sits at 10% CPU most of the day costs noticeably less on a metered platform than on a fixed instance. A busy app on Ownkube still totals less than Northflank's flat figure in this comparison, though the margin gets thin at sustained high CPU.
If your app runs hot around the clock, put it on a flat box instead of the meter. Ownkube lets you choose per deployment: a metered web app, or a flat Spark box from $5 a month for a steady worker. Metered vs reserved pricing explains when each one wins.
How does Ownkube price each line?
The Ownkube numbers in the table come straight from the public price list.
The web app is metered at about $18 per vCPU per month of actual CPU use and $4.50 per GiB of memory per month. A 1 vCPU / 1 GiB app at 40% CPU comes to $7.20 for CPU and $4.50 for memory.
Postgres runs on a DB 1 box (1 GiB of memory) at a flat $8 a month, plus storage at $0.25 per GB, so 10 GB adds $2.50. The cache is a Valkey cache box. The smallest boxes start at $2 a month, and this stack uses the $5 size.
Storage at $0.25 per GB includes 7-day backups with point-in-time restore on the Personal and Team plans. Backups are off by default, and you turn them on per database. Standby replicas for a highly available database are on Team.
Everything draws from one prepaid wallet. Pay as you go starts with a $5 top-up and runs this exact stack (three services, a database up to DB 2). Personal is $5 a month, loads $5 of credit, and adds backups and higher limits.
Unused credit rolls over and never expires, and the most you can spend is the balance you loaded. Our prepaid wallet guide covers how that bounds the bill.
When is Ownkube the wrong choice?
Price is one input. Another platform fits better in these cases:
- You need a region near users outside Europe and South Asia. Ownkube Compute runs in the Mumbai and Germany regions today, while Fly.io, Render and DigitalOcean cover far more locations.
- You want serverless Postgres with a branch per pull request. Neon is the closest match for that workflow.
- You want a managed database with high availability on the smallest plan. Fly.io includes it from Basic. On Ownkube, standbys are a Team feature.
- You need GPU workloads. Northflank runs them, and Ownkube does not today.
FAQ
What is the cheapest Heroku alternative with a database?
In this comparison it is Ownkube, at about $27 a month for a web app, a 1 GiB Postgres and a cache. The same shape costs about $89 on Heroku. Northflank and DigitalOcean come next at about $37 and $42.
Heroku's own Essential Postgres is cheap at $9. The web dyno and the cache are what push the Heroku total up.
Is there something cheaper than Railway for a web app, database and cache?
Yes. Ownkube, Northflank and DigitalOcean all priced lower than Railway's roughly $44 for this stack. Railway's metered model is fair for bursty apps, but its database bills memory continuously, and that is where the total climbs.
Why does the database matter so much in a full-stack comparison?
A database holds its memory all day, so it never benefits from idle time the way a web process can. Platforms also price it very differently: from $9 on Heroku Essential to about $41 on Fly.io Managed Postgres for a 1 GiB database.
Our managed Postgres cost calculator compares eight providers at any size.
Are these prices current?
They are approximate list prices, mapped to each provider's nearest public tier as charted on 2026-10-02. Providers change prices and plan shapes, so check each pricing page before you commit, and run your own sizes on the homepage calculator.
Where Ownkube fits
Ownkube is a developer platform for shipping a full-stack app fast. The web app runs on metered compute, managed Postgres and a Valkey cache run on flat boxes, and everything draws from one prepaid wallet with credit that never expires.
For the common small production stack, it prices lowest of the seven platforms we chart. The same app can move into your own AWS account later with no rewrite. Deploy my first app.
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