Railway Alternative for Nigerian Developers — Naira Billing, No FX Markup

If you have deployed on Railway and watched your monthly bill swing between ₦6,500 and ₦9,000 without changing a single line of code — you already know the problem. It was not your app. It was the naira.

This guide explains why Nigerian developers are moving away from Railway, how OneBit Deploy compares feature-for-feature, and how to migrate a Node.js project in under ten minutes.

Why Nigerian Developers Are Leaving Railway

Railway is a genuinely good platform for developers in the US or EU. For Nigerian developers it has one structural problem: every price is in USD, and you pay with a dollar card.

That means:

• FX volatility eats your budget. Railway's Hobby plan is $5/month. At ₦1,500/$ that is ₦7,500. At ₦1,700/$ it is ₦8,500. Your infrastructure cost moves with the exchange rate every single month — and you have no control over it.
• You need a dollar card. Getting and maintaining a dollar card in Nigeria adds friction (card fees, international transaction fees, approval delays). Many developers simply cannot get one, or find theirs declined without explanation.
• No Paystack support. Railway does not integrate with Paystack, Flutterwave, or any Nigerian payment processor. You pay in dollars or you do not pay at all.
• No naira invoicing. Your accounting team, your CFO, your freelance clients — none of them want to see a USD receipt. VAT and bookkeeping in naira require a naira invoice.

These are not minor inconveniences. They are structural barriers that make Railway unsuitable as a long-term production platform for Nigerian teams and solo developers.

OneBit Deploy vs Railway — Feature Comparison

Pricing Comparison — What You Actually Pay

Railway Hobby ($5/month usage-based)

Railway's $5/month is a credit — not a flat rate. You are charged for CPU seconds, memory, and egress. A moderately active Node.js app with a Postgres database typically runs $8–$15/month in practice.

At current exchange rates:

Every row moves. You cannot budget for it.

OneBit Deploy

₦30,000 is ₦30,000 next month. No FX table needed.

How to Migrate a Node.js App from Railway to OneBit Deploy

This walkthrough assumes you have a Node.js app on Railway backed by a Postgres database.

Step 1 — Export your Railway database

In the Railway dashboard, open your Postgres service → Connect → copy the DATABASE_URL. Then run:

pg_dump "$DATABASE_URL" -Fc -f railway_backup.dump

Keep this file — you will restore it after provisioning.

Step 2 — Sign up for OneBit Deploy

Go to deploy.onebit.ng and create an account. No dollar card required — you will pay via Paystack when you upgrade.

Step 3 — Connect your GitHub repository

In the OneBit console:

1. On Apps, press Add app and open GitHub account
2. Press Connect GitHub to authorise the OneBit GitHub App — scope it to only the repos you need
3. Select your repository and its Branch to put online, press Import, then Deploy

OneBit detects Node.js automatically and generates an optimised Dockerfile. You do not write or maintain a Dockerfile.

Step 4 — Add your environment variables

In the OneBit console, open your app → Environment. Copy your Railway env vars over one by one with Add variable, or all at once with Paste many at once. Secrets are masked after saving and trigger an automatic restart on change. NEXT_PUBLIC_* variables are correctly exposed at build time.

Step 5 — Provision a managed Postgres database (Hobby plan required)

Go to Apps → Add app → Add database → select PostgreSQL. OneBit provisions it and gives you a ready-made DATABASE_URL on the database's page. Copy it into your app's Environment.

Then restore your Railway backup:

pg_restore -d "$ONEBIT_DATABASE_URL" -Fc railway_backup.dump

Step 6 — Deploy

With your keys and database in place, press Redeploy on the app page or push a commit. OneBit builds your container, deploys to its cluster, and gives you a public HTTPS URL. Your app is live.

Step 7 — Point your custom domain

In your app → Domains → Add domain, enter your domain and press Add it. Update your DNS to point to OneBit's CNAME. TLS is provisioned automatically after DNS resolves — allow a few minutes after DNS propagates.

Step 8 — Confirm Railway can be switched off

Run your smoke tests against the OneBit URL. Once confident, delete the Railway project. Your next Railway invoice is ₦0.

Who Should (and Shouldn't) Switch

Switch if:

• Your stack is Node.js or Next.js
• You are paying Railway in dollars or struggling to get a dollar card
• Your team budgets in naira and needs predictable monthly costs
• You want to pay via Paystack (bank card or transfer)

Do not switch yet if:

• Your stack includes Go, PHP, or Ruby — OneBit does not support those runtimes today (Python is in early access)
• You rely on Railway's automated database backups — OneBit does not offer automated backups; you must export your own data manually
• You need multi-region deploys

The Bottom Line

Railway is built for a global audience. OneBit Deploy is built for Nigeria.

If you are writing Node.js or Next.js and paying in naira — or trying to — OneBit removes the FX problem entirely. ₦30,000/month is the Hobby plan, every month, regardless of what the naira does against the dollar.

Deploy your first app free →

Prices correct as of August 2026. Railway pricing sourced from railway.app/pricing. Exchange-rate illustrations are approximate and for informational purposes only.