Specific vs Fly.io
How Specific compares to Fly.io as an alternative: an integrated application platform with agent-first config and full local dev, instead of infrastructure primitives you assemble.
Fly.io gives you fast, low-level infrastructure: Machines (microVMs) around the world, volumes, and a per-app fly.toml, with Managed Postgres, Upstash Redis, and Tigris object storage as separate offerings you attach. Specific operates a level higher: the application stack (services, Postgres, storage, Redis, sync, Temporal) is one integrated config file that a coding agent writes and operates. If you’re weighing Fly.io alternatives that trade low-level control for an integrated, agent-first platform, here’s how the two compare.
| Fly.io | Specific | |
|---|---|---|
| Abstraction | Infrastructure primitives (Machines, volumes) | Application building blocks |
| Agent integration | Human-oriented CLI and config | Agent-first CLI with structured feedback |
| Infrastructure definition | Per-app fly.toml, resources attached separately |
Full stack in one config file, wired automatically |
| Local development | No unified local environment | specific dev runs the full stack locally, no Docker |
| Database | Managed Postgres (attached per app) | Managed Postgres with zero-downtime migrations built in |
| Object storage | Tigris integration | Built-in S3-compatible storage (also Tigris) |
| Caching | Upstash for Redis | Built-in managed Redis |
| Real-time | Not included | Built-in sync engine |
| Durable workflows | Not included | Built-in managed Temporal |
Building blocks, pre-assembled
On Fly, you compose the pieces yourself: launch an app, create a Postgres cluster, add Upstash Redis, connect Tigris storage, and wire the credentials between them. Each piece is solid, and the control is real, but the assembly is yours to design, script, and maintain.
Specific pre-assembles the same shape of stack. A postgres, storage, or temporal block plus a reference like postgres.main.url in a service’s env is the entire integration: credentials, addresses, and wiring resolve automatically in every environment. That assembly work is exactly the part coding agents get wrong on primitive-level platforms, and exactly what Specific’s config makes trivial.
The same code runs locally
Fly’s development model is cloud-first: fly launch and fly deploy get you running in production quickly, but there’s no unified way to run your app with its databases and storage on your own machine.
specific dev runs the whole stack locally without Docker: real Postgres, an S3-compatible storage server, Redis, and a Temporal dev server, using the same config and references as production. Your agent can build, run, and verify features end to end before anything is deployed.
Common questions
Is Specific a good alternative to Fly.io?
If what you’re building is a full-stack application and you want the platform to assemble and operate the infrastructure (especially if a coding agent is doing the building), yes. If you need low-level control (choosing regions, tuning Machines, running custom global topologies), Fly’s primitives are the better fit.
Both use Tigris for object storage. What’s the difference?
The provider is the same; the integration isn’t. On Fly, Tigris is an add-on you create and wire up per app. On Specific, a one-line storage block gives you credentials injected into your services, plus a local S3-compatible server in specific dev, so the same code runs against local storage in development and Tigris in production.
Does Specific let me pick regions like Fly does?
Not yet. Today all Specific deployments run in a single region (AWS eu-central-1), and region selection is on our roadmap. Fly’s global Machine placement is a genuine differentiator, so if per-region control or multi-region distribution is a hard requirement right now, Fly is the right tool.