Sovereign cells vs Railway

Name: Aspian Cloud
Brand: Aspian Cloud

Railway is a fast, usage-billed platform for apps and databases. Aspian Cloud adds where-data-lives guarantees, passkey approvals and the Aspian service.

Checked on 7 November 2026 against Railway’s own pages. Prices and features change; follow each source before relying on a row.

Side by side

Our column describes sovereign cells, the optional hosting add-on. Aspian Cloud’s change control works on Railway too; see integrations.

Where apps run: Railway
4 regions: US West (California), US East (Virginia), EU West (Amsterdam), Southeast Asia (Singapore). None in Africa or Nigeria.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
Cells in Lagos, Abuja, London or the EU, or in your own data centre. Each cell holds apps, databases, logs and backups in one jurisdiction
/security
Deploy from GitHub: Railway
Yes; services linked to a repo auto-deploy on push to the connected branch.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
Builds a GitHub repository at an exact commit
/docs/deploys
Builds without a Dockerfile: Railway
Yes; Railpack detects the language (Node, Python, Go, PHP, Java, Ruby, Rust, Elixir and more) and builds an image with no configuration.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
Not yet. Today the build needs a Dockerfile at the repository root
/docs/deploys
Preview environments: Railway
Yes; optional temporary PR environments, deleted when the PR is merged or closed.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
A preview for every branch
/cells
Managed Postgres: Railway
Native Postgres service (Railway-maintained single node from its own image), convertible to HA (Patroni). Native backups and point-in-time recovery.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
Postgres 17 with three instances and synchronous replicas; point-in-time recovery; signed restore drills
/cells
Rollback: Railway
Rollback in the deployment menu redeploys an earlier deployment's code; only for deploys inside the plan's retention window.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
Release rollback is a reversible action that never waits for an approver. It never reverses a database migration
/docs/plans-and-approvals
Cheapest paid plan: Railway
Hobby, $5/month including $5 of usage; per-second usage beyond that is billed on top (Pro includes $20 of usage).
railway.com
Aspian Cloud
Shared cells are billed on usage by the hour, with a spend cap; change control is priced by tier
/cells
Billing currency: Railway
Not confirmed: prices are shown only with '$' (apparently USD). No naira billing found.
railway.com
Aspian Cloud
USD, GBP, EUR or naira through Paystack or Flutterwave. No dollar card needed in Nigeria
/editions
Approval before production changes: Railway
No multi-person or passkey approval for production. What exists: 'Wait for CI' (deploy only after GitHub Actions pass), review-and-approve of staged changes for synced environments, and environment RBAC on Enterprise only.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
Passkey approval bound to the exact plan hash; two people on Business and above. The requester can never approve
/docs/plans-and-approvals
Audit trail: Railway
Workspace audit logs for admins on all plans. Retention: 48 hours on Free/Trial/Hobby, 30 days on Pro, 18 months on Enterprise. Queryable via GraphQL API.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
Signed, hash-chained audit trail per organisation on every edition, checkpointed outside the database
/security
MCP for AI agents: Railway
Official hosted MCP at mcp.railway.com (OAuth), plus a local CLI MCP (`railway mcp`): projects, variables, redeploys, templates.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
MCP server where every tool has a risk class and reading customer content taints the agent key. Not yet offered as a hosted endpoint
/docs/mcp
Published SLA: Railway
Enterprise only: 99.99% SLA, contractual.
railway.com
Aspian Cloud
Proposed per edition, in draft awaiting legal review
/legal/sla
Certifications: Railway
SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3. HIPAA BAA as a paid add-on above a spend threshold. GDPR DPA. DORA documents under NDA. ISO 27001 not mentioned.
docs.railway.com
Aspian Cloud
None claimed. Evidence packs map platform records to NDPA 2023, UK GDPR and ISO/IEC 27001
/trust

	Railway	Aspian Cloud
Where apps run	4 regions: US West (California), US East (Virginia), EU West (Amsterdam), Southeast Asia (Singapore). None in Africa or Nigeria. docs.railway.com	Cells in Lagos, Abuja, London or the EU, or in your own data centre. Each cell holds apps, databases, logs and backups in one jurisdiction /security
Deploy from GitHub	Yes; services linked to a repo auto-deploy on push to the connected branch. docs.railway.com	Builds a GitHub repository at an exact commit /docs/deploys
Builds without a Dockerfile	Yes; Railpack detects the language (Node, Python, Go, PHP, Java, Ruby, Rust, Elixir and more) and builds an image with no configuration. docs.railway.com	Not yet. Today the build needs a Dockerfile at the repository root /docs/deploys
Preview environments	Yes; optional temporary PR environments, deleted when the PR is merged or closed. docs.railway.com	A preview for every branch /cells
Managed Postgres	Native Postgres service (Railway-maintained single node from its own image), convertible to HA (Patroni). Native backups and point-in-time recovery. docs.railway.com	Postgres 17 with three instances and synchronous replicas; point-in-time recovery; signed restore drills /cells
Rollback	Rollback in the deployment menu redeploys an earlier deployment's code; only for deploys inside the plan's retention window. docs.railway.com	Release rollback is a reversible action that never waits for an approver. It never reverses a database migration /docs/plans-and-approvals
Cheapest paid plan	Hobby, $5/month including $5 of usage; per-second usage beyond that is billed on top (Pro includes $20 of usage). railway.com	Shared cells are billed on usage by the hour, with a spend cap; change control is priced by tier /cells
Billing currency	Not confirmed: prices are shown only with '$' (apparently USD). No naira billing found. railway.com	USD, GBP, EUR or naira through Paystack or Flutterwave. No dollar card needed in Nigeria /editions
Approval before production changes	No multi-person or passkey approval for production. What exists: 'Wait for CI' (deploy only after GitHub Actions pass), review-and-approve of staged changes for synced environments, and environment RBAC on Enterprise only. docs.railway.com	Passkey approval bound to the exact plan hash; two people on Business and above. The requester can never approve /docs/plans-and-approvals
Audit trail	Workspace audit logs for admins on all plans. Retention: 48 hours on Free/Trial/Hobby, 30 days on Pro, 18 months on Enterprise. Queryable via GraphQL API. docs.railway.com	Signed, hash-chained audit trail per organisation on every edition, checkpointed outside the database /security
MCP for AI agents	Official hosted MCP at mcp.railway.com (OAuth), plus a local CLI MCP (`railway mcp`): projects, variables, redeploys, templates. docs.railway.com	MCP server where every tool has a risk class and reading customer content taints the agent key. Not yet offered as a hosted endpoint /docs/mcp
Published SLA	Enterprise only: 99.99% SLA, contractual. railway.com	Proposed per edition, in draft awaiting legal review /legal/sla
Certifications	SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3. HIPAA BAA as a paid add-on above a spend threshold. GDPR DPA. DORA documents under NDA. ISO 27001 not mentioned. docs.railway.com	None claimed. Evidence packs map platform records to NDPA 2023, UK GDPR and ISO/IEC 27001 /trust

When Railway fits better

Fastest path from repo to running multi-service backend (app, Postgres, Redis, workers on one canvas) with per-second billing from $5/month.
Good for prototypes and internal tools where data residency in Lagos or London is not a requirement (EU West is Amsterdam, not London).
Agent-friendly: an official hosted MCP and CLI let AI coding agents provision and redeploy directly.

Moving from Railway

Take your things out of Railway

Export variables per service and environment with railway variable list --kv (KEY=VALUE) or --json, using -s <service> -e <env>, and redirect the output to a file. docs.railway.com
Postgres is private by default. Enable Public Access (TCP proxy) to get DATABASE_PUBLIC_URL, then run standard pg_dump against it. The pg_dump step is an inference: the docs give the URL but not the command. Proxy traffic is billed as egress. docs.railway.com
Builds are Railpack or Dockerfile from the repo, so source moves as-is. Railpack config files or env-var overrides need porting. docs.railway.com

Bring them to Aspian Cloud

Add a Dockerfile at the repository root if you do not have one, and make the server listen on the port in $PORT. See Deploy with a Dockerfile.
Export your environment variables to a file on your machine. Secret values go into Aspian Cloud as write-only secrets and are never shown again.
Take a pg_dump of each database. We restore it into your cell and run a restore drill, so the first Trust Page fact about the new database is a tested restore.
Deploy to a preview first. Low-risk changes like previews never wait for an approver.
Point your domain at the new app with a domain_change plan. It is an irreversible action, so it needs a passkey approval.

We plan the move with you. Talk to us.