Head-to-head, indicative as of Oct 2026. Prices change — always confirm on the vendor page.
Quick read: pick Fly.io if your workload is apps that need to be close to users everywhere and its included egress fits your traffic shape; pick Appwrite if you need open-source firebase alternative you can own. For anything latency-sensitive at the edge, cold start row is the tiebreaker.
| Fly.io | Appwrite | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Global VM platform | Backend platform (OSS) |
| Free tier | Small allowances on paid plan | Self-host free; cloud free tier |
| Paid pricing (indicative) | Pay-as-you-go from ~$2/mo per VM | Cloud Pro from ~$15/mo |
| Egress | Free tier then billed | n/a |
| Cold start | ~300ms (Firecracker VMs) | n/a |
| Regions | 30+ regions | Self-host or cloud |
| Best for | Apps that need to be close to users everywhere | Open-source Firebase alternative you can own |
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Last reviewed 2026-10-02 · NinjaOps SEO grid · DevOps blog