A cheap Heroku, Render and Railway alternative on your own server

Heroku pioneered git push deployments, and platforms like Render, Railway and Fly.io modernized the experience. For a single small web service, all of them feel inexpensive at the start.

The surprise arrives when your project grows into a real stack: a web app, an API, a background worker, a cron runner, a Postgres database, a Redis cache, and a staging environment. On platforms that charge per dyno, per service or per database instance, a modest stack turns into six or seven separate monthly line items—plus per-seat fees if a teammate joins.

Aria takes a simpler approach: rent one dedicated cloud server that Aria sets up, hardens and runs for you, and put your entire stack on it for one flat monthly price (from £8/month ex VAT, draft).

Why per-dyno and per-service bills multiply

Modern PaaS pricing usually looks small because the headline number is for one tiny container with 512 MB or 1 GB of RAM and no database. Look at what happens as soon as you build a typical SaaS product:

1. Every process is a new bill. Splitting a monolith into a web front end, an API service and a queue worker triples your compute line items, even when the worker sits idle 90% of the day.
2. Managed Postgres and Redis cost extra per instance. A small managed Postgres instance with enough RAM to avoid out-of-memory crashes often costs more than the web service itself—and staging needs another one.
3. Team seats add a tax on collaboration. Several PaaS providers charge per team member per month before you add a single gigabyte of RAM.
4. Sleeping instances or cold starts on entry tiers. Cheap tiers often spin down after inactivity, which breaks webhooks and makes the first visitor wait.

Always check Heroku, Render, Railway and Fly.io directly for their current numbers.

One dedicated server vs paying per service

When you rent a server through Aria, you aren’t paying for slices of memory per process. You get the whole virtual or physical machine:

Feature	Aria	Heroku / Render / Railway
Billing unit	One flat monthly price per server	Per dyno / service + per database + per seat or usage
Web + API + Worker	Included on the same server	Billed as 3 separate services or resource pools
Postgres & Redis	Included on the same server	Billed as separate database add-ons or usage
Self-hosted Supabase	Included (Auth, REST, Realtime, Storage, Studio)	Not built in (requires external Supabase Cloud or manual Docker)
Team members	No per-seat charge	Often charged per workspace member
Always on	Yes — dedicated server never sleeps	Entry tiers may sleep or throttle
Starting price	£8/month ex VAT (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, draft)	Varies by dyno/service count and seat count

How Aria keeps the Heroku developer experience

Developers stay on Heroku, Render or Railway because nobody wants to spend their evenings patching Ubuntu, writing Nginx configs or debugging Let’s Encrypt renewals. Aria keeps the PaaS workflow while giving you your own server:

• One aria.yaml file written by your coding agent (Claude Code, Cursor or any other) defines your web services, APIs, workers, static sites and databases.
• Zero-config builds with Railpack or your own Dockerfile.
• Automatic HTTPS and custom domains.
• Automatic environment wiring: Aria generates secrets and injects your Postgres, Redis and Supabase connection strings into your services.
• Live build and runtime logs in the native macOS 26 app or the web dashboard.
• Two-second rollback to the previous working build if a deploy fails.

How much fits on one server?

Because Aria doesn’t charge per app, the only limit is your server’s memory, CPU and disk. Aria estimates the memory your aria.yaml needs before provisioning so you never guess:

• Starter (£8/mo ex VAT, 4 GB RAM): A web app, an API and a Postgres database, or two to three small side projects.
• Developer (£15/mo ex VAT, 8 GB RAM): A production SaaS with Next.js, a worker, Redis and full self-hosted Supabase, or a staging server with multiple environments.
• Pro (£22/mo ex VAT, 12 GB RAM) & Business (£30/mo ex VAT, 16 GB RAM): Multiple client apps for an agency, or heavier APIs and background queues.
• Scale (£40/mo, 24 GB RAM), Scale Plus (£60/mo, 32 GB RAM) & Dedicated Metal (£100–£350/mo, Planned): High-traffic workloads and large databases.

FAQ

Does an Aria server ever sleep on the £8/month plan?

No. Every Aria plan—starting from Starter at £8/month ex VAT (draft)—is a dedicated cloud server that runs 24/7. Your web apps, APIs, webhooks and background workers never spin down or cold-start.

Can I run multiple side projects on one Aria server?

Yes. You can run as many web apps, APIs, workers and Postgres databases on a single Aria server as its RAM and disk can hold, for the same flat monthly price.

How does Aria compare to installing an open-source panel on a raw VPS?

With a raw VPS panel, you still install, update, secure and troubleshoot the operating system and the panel itself. Aria sets up, hardens and runs the server for you, pairs with your coding agent via aria.yaml and MCP (with human approval gates), and gives you a native Mac app and web dashboard.

What if my apps outgrow my server’s RAM?

Aria monitors your server’s CPU, memory and disk usage and suggests moving up to the next plan when your stack starts running short.

Stop paying per dyno and per seat

See how every plan is sized on the pricing page, compare Aria against Heroku, Render and Railway, or get started.