Fly.io vs Prisma
Run your app close to users, globally
vs. Next-gen ORM + serverless data platform (Postgres + Accelerate + Pulse)
Pricing tiers
Fly.io
Pay-as-you-go
No monthly fee. Machines billed per second. Free allocations: ~3 small shared machines + 3 GB volumes.
$0 base (usage-based)
Shared CPU 1x — 256 MB
Entry VM. 1 shared vCPU, 256 MB RAM. ~$2.02/month continuously on.
$2/mo
Performance 1x — 2 GB
Dedicated 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM.
$32/mo
Reservation — Shared (1 yr)
$36/year for $5/mo credit (40% savings).
$36/mo
Shared CPU 8x — 16 GB
8 shared vCPU, 16 GB RAM.
$89/mo
Performance 16x — 128 GB
Dedicated 16 vCPU, 128 GB RAM.
$1014/mo
Enterprise
Custom. Dedicated capacity, SLA.
Custom
Prisma
Prisma ORM (OSS)
$0. Apache-2.0. Unlimited self-hosted use with your own DB.
$0 base (usage-based)
Prisma Postgres — Free
$0. 100K queries/mo. 1GB storage. 3 DBs. Good for hobby/prototyping.
Free
Starter
$29/mo. 1M queries/mo. 10GB storage. Accelerate + Pulse included.
$29/mo
Pro
$99/mo. 5M queries/mo. 50GB storage. Priority + SLA.
$99/mo
Enterprise
Custom. HIPAA, SSO, dedicated, self-hosted Accelerate.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing pay-as-you-go on Fly.io vs starter on Prisma.
| Metric | Fly.io | Prisma |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Fly.io · 14 features
- Auto Stop/Start — Machines auto-stop when idle, start on request (like scale-to-zero).
- Certs — Let's Encrypt + wildcard certs managed.
- Fly GPU — A100/L40S/A10 on-demand GPU machines.
- Fly Kubernetes (FKS) — Managed Kubernetes on Fly machines.
- Fly Machines — Firecracker microVMs. Start in <1s. Run any Docker image.
- Fly Postgres — Managed Postgres via Supabase partnership (2024). Also legacy self-run Postgres …
- fly-replay headers — Route request to another region at app level.
- Fly Volumes — Persistent SSD attached to a Machine. Encrypted at rest.
- Global Anycast — Single IP routes to the closest region automatically.
- LiteFS — Distributed SQLite with primary/replica across regions.
- Private Networks — 6PN WireGuard mesh. Connect machines across regions privately.
- Secrets — Encrypted env vars propagated to all regions.
- Tigris (partner) — S3-compatible storage for Fly apps. By partner.
- Upstash Redis (partner) — Managed Redis via Upstash.
Prisma · 13 features
- Client Extensions — Extend the client with middleware.
- Edge Runtime — Runs on Vercel/CF edge via Accelerate.
- End-to-end Type Safety — Types flow from schema to client.
- Prisma Accelerate — Global connection pool + query cache.
- Prisma Migrate — Schema migrations.
- Prisma Optimize — AI-driven query recommendations.
- Prisma ORM — OSS ORM for Node/TS.
- Prisma Postgres — Serverless Postgres built on Accelerate.
- Prisma Pulse — Database CDC streaming.
- Prisma Studio — GUI to browse + edit DB.
- Raw SQL + typedSql — Escape hatch for raw queries with types.
- Relation Querying — Nested include / select.
- Zero Cold Start Pool — Accelerate keeps a warm pool for serverless.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Fly.io | Prisma |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | flyctl CLI | prisma CLI |
| SDK | — | @prisma/client |
| REST | Machines API | — |
| GRAPHQL | Fly GraphQL API | — |
| OTHER | Fly Postgres (wire) | Prisma Accelerate, Prisma Data Platform, Prisma Optimize, Prisma Postgres, Prisma Pulse (CDC) |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Fly.io and Prisma are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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