Koyeb vs Railway
Koyeb is a European alternative to Railway: same cloud & hosting use case, headquartered in France and operating under GDPR by default, while Railway (Railway Corp.) is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
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- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- GDPR by default
- Yes
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- No
Railway is a US developer platform for deploying apps, databases, and services without managing infrastructure.
- Jurisdiction
- US
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
Koyeb vs Railway at a glance
| Koyeb | Railway | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | France | US |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | US law applies |
| GDPR by default | Yes | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Open source | No | — |
| Free tier | No | — |
| Best for | Teams that need cloud & hosting with EU data residency | Teams already invested in the Railway Corp. ecosystem |
Choose Koyeb if…
- You want your data to stay under EU law without extra legal paperwork
- GDPR compliance or public-sector requirements apply to you
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Railway if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Railway Corp. ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
Why choose Koyeb over Railway?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Railway is headquartered in US, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
Koyeb removes that overhead. As a France-based provider, it operates natively under GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single non-EU jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.