Pick Railway
Pick Railway if you need a general-purpose cloud platform to deploy services — databases, workers, APIs. Mature, polished, broad.
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Theo vs Railway — agent-shaped vs general-purpose
Railway is the mature general-purpose cloud platform. Theo is the agent-shaped full cycle — coding agent, scaffold, framework, and managed deploy.
Railway recently pivoted to "Railway for AI Agents". Honest framing.
TL;DR
Pick Theo
Pick Theo if you want the full cycle anchored on AI agents — coding agent, polyglot scaffold, agent-shaped framework, managed deploy.
You can use both: Railway for managed databases, TheoCloud for the agent surface.
Comparison matrix
| Capability | Theo | Railway |
|---|---|---|
| Polished managed databases (Postgres, MySQL, Redis) | Partial (BYO recommended) | yes (one-click + backups) |
| Mature general-purpose PaaS DX | Partial (agent-shaped) | yes |
| Coding agent integrated in the workflow | yes (TheoCode, Plan/Code/Infra) | no |
| Polyglot scaffolding (7 langs) | yes (TheoCreate, 19 templates) | Partial (broad templates, no agent shape) |
| Open-source funnel (Apache-2.0) | yes (TheoCode + TheoCreate + TheoKit) | no |
| Signed container images + SBOM per build | yes (cosign by default) | no (DIY) |
| Per-agent observability (LLM spans, tool calls) | yes (OTel native) | Partial (generic metrics) |
| Self-host commercial license | yes (Enterprise) | no |
When to pick Railway
You need polished managed databases
Postgres, MySQL, Redis with one-click provisioning + backups.
You're deploying services that aren't agent-shaped
Plain API, microservice, internal tool — Railway's general model fits.
You're already on Railway
Migrating away for agent-shape isn't worth it.
When to pick Theo
Your product is the AI agent
"Production runtime for AI agents" vs general-purpose cloud platform.
You want full cycle in one motion
TheoCode → TheoCreate → TheoKit → TheoCloud.
Signed images + supply chain matter
Cosign every container, SBOM Team+, attestation per release.
Multi-cell isolation + Enterprise self-host
Dedicated cells, SSO/SAML, SLA 99.9%+.
FAQ
Can I use Railway and Theo together?
Yes — keep Railway-hosted services (especially managed databases) and point a TheoKit app at them.
Railway pivoted to AI Agents — is Theo redundant?
No. Railway's pivot is messaging-level. Theo is opinionated about agents end-to-end.
What does Railway do better?
Polished managed databases, mature general-purpose PaaS DX, broader template catalog for non-agent shapes.