---
title: "Specific vs Railway"
description: "How Specific compares to Railway as an alternative: the whole stack defined in one agent-writable config file, Docker-free local development, and built-in sync and durable workflows."
---

Railway is a deployment platform with a polished dashboard: you create services and databases in the UI, connect a repo, and Railway builds and runs it. Specific takes a different approach: your entire stack (services, databases, storage, workflows) is defined in a single config file that your coding agent writes, versioned with your code. If you're looking for a Railway alternative where infrastructure lives in code instead of a dashboard, here's how the two compare.

| | Railway | Specific |
|---|---|---|
| Agent integration | Dashboard-first | Agent-first |
| Infrastructure definition | Services and databases created in the dashboard | Full topology in one agent-writable config file |
| Config as code | Build/deploy settings for a single service (`railway.json`) | Everything: services, databases, storage, workflows |
| Local development | Docker-based (`railway dev`), or cloud resources with injected env vars (`railway run`) | `specific dev` runs the full stack locally, no Docker |
| Database | Postgres, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB | Managed Postgres with zero-downtime migrations, managed Redis |
| Object storage | Storage buckets | Built-in S3-compatible storage |
| Real-time | Not included | Built-in sync engine |
| Durable workflows | Not included | Built-in managed Temporal |

## Infrastructure as code, not clicks

On Railway, the source of truth is the dashboard: services, databases, and their wiring are created and connected there. The `railway.json` config file covers build and deploy settings for a single service, not the topology itself.

With Specific, the config file is the whole system: every service, database, storage bucket, and workflow engine, plus how they connect. That makes infrastructure reviewable in pull requests, reproducible across environments, and, most importantly, writable by a coding agent. Your agent adds a Postgres database by writing four lines of HCL and running `specific check`, not by clicking through a dashboard it can't see.

## Local development without Docker

Railway's local story is either `railway run`, which injects your cloud environment variables into a local process (your app runs locally, the resources stay in the cloud), or the Docker-based `railway dev`.

`specific dev` runs everything on your machine with no Docker at all: real Postgres from bundled binaries, an S3-compatible storage server, Redis, and a Temporal dev server, wired to your services with the same references production uses. Your agent can start the stack, test end to end, and read the logs, entirely offline.

## Building blocks beyond deploys

Railway covers services, databases, and storage well. For real-time sync you'd assemble your own layer, and for durable background workflows you'd run and manage your own engine.

Specific ships both as one-line blocks: a [sync engine](/guides/sync) that streams Postgres changes to clients over HTTP, and [managed Temporal](/guides/temporal) for durable workflows, with a local dev server and an auto-provisioned Temporal Cloud namespace in production.

## Common questions

### Is Specific a good alternative to Railway?

If you want your whole stack defined in code, a full local development environment, and infrastructure a coding agent can manage end to end, yes. If you prefer configuring services visually in a dashboard, or need MySQL or MongoDB specifically, Railway serves that well.

### Can't I get config-as-code on Railway?

Partially. Railway's `railway.json`/`railway.toml` configures how a single existing service builds and deploys. Creating services, databases, and their connections still happens in the dashboard. A community-maintained Terraform provider can drive Railway's API to fill that gap, but it brings Terraform's own overhead with it: state files to manage, provider wiring, and still no local development environment ([how Specific compares to Terraform](/compare/terraform)). In Specific, the config file covers all of it natively.

### How does local development actually differ?

Railway's options are running against cloud resources with injected env vars, or a Docker-based local mode. Specific runs real local instances (Postgres, S3-compatible storage, Redis, Temporal) from bundled binaries with no Docker daemon, using the same config and references as production.

**[Quickstart](/quickstart)**

Clone an example project and get familiar with Specific

**[Installation](/installation)**

Install Specific for your own project and get started building