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Meridian vs Fly.io

An honest analysis of both platforms, to help you make the right decision.

One app, production and staging.

The setup Meridian Lite comes with: two environments, production and development (used as staging), each with its own database. On Fly.io both machines are priced running all the time.

Meridian Lite$69/ monthHosting, plus environments, rollbacks, previews, backups, Shopify webhooks over Pub/Sub, Shopify API alerts, vulnerability scans, plans and billing, CRM, email, App Store tracking and support.
Fly.io, hosting only$45/ monthTwo always-on 512 MB Machines at $3.69 and one Managed Postgres Basic cluster at $38 holding both databases. No platform fee. Support plans from $29 a month.

Fly.io prices from docs.fly.io/about/pricing, checked on 10 October 2026. Prices in USD, excluding tax.

Side by side.

MeridianFly.io
Pricing
Pricing model
Per app: Lite $69, Pro $169 a month, Enterprise on quote.
No platform fee. Every Machine, volume, database and gigabyte is billed by use, per second.
Going over
No overage bill. At the bandwidth limit the app slows down until the month resets or you move it up a size.
Everything is metered, so the bill follows usage. Bandwidth is $0.02/GB in North America and Europe.
Hosting alone, per app
$69 a month, everything below included.
About $45 a month for production and staging with Managed Postgres.
Support
Included: community Slack on Lite, live support on Pro, dedicated support on Enterprise.
Community forum free. Standard $29 and Premium $199 a month, 99.9% SLA on Enterprise.
Build and host
What you write
Your own app in your GitHub repository, such as Shopify's React Router template.
Your own app, with a launch guide for Shopify CLI apps.
Database engine
Managed MySQL. PostgreSQL is coming.
Managed PostgreSQL.
Environments
Development and Production on every plan, Staging on Enterprise.
No built-in environments. Staging is a separate app, ideally in a separate organization.
Preview per pull request
Every pull request gets its own preview deployment.
Review apps through a GitHub Actions workflow you add.
Rollbacks
Instant rollback to any previous successful deployment, no rebuild.
No rollback command: redeploy an earlier image from the command line. Old images can be pruned.
Backups
Daily, kept 7 days on Lite, 30 on Pro. Restores included.
Managed Postgres backed up automatically and kept 10 days, with point-in-time restore to a new cluster.
Vulnerability scan
Every production deploy is scanned for known vulnerabilities.
An experimental command-line scan you run yourself.
Hosting region
EU (Belgium) by default. EU or US on Enterprise.
18 regions, including Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris and Stockholm, chosen per app.
Custom domains
Self-serve on any environment, with the certificate handled for you.
Automatic certificates, the first 10 free.
Scaling up one app
Hosting sizes per app, from $79 a month, without changing plan.
Machines start and stop with traffic. Scaling on metrics means deploying Fly's autoscaler as your own app.
Shopify
Webhooks
Delivered over Google Cloud Pub/Sub, with a delivery log showing each delivery, its status and retries.
No Shopify webhook handling in its documentation. Its Shopify guide says to keep production Machines running.
Shopify API changes
Alerts when a change or a pinned API version affects your code, with the file, line and a suggested fix.
Not in Fly.io's documentation.
Pricing plans and feature gates
Plan Builder: define plans and gate features with the SDK, no billing code to write.
Not in Fly.io's documentation.
Usage-based billing
Track usage events with the SDK. Meridian meters and bills them with the plan.
Not in Fly.io's documentation.
Growth tools for public apps
CRM and segments
Every store in one place, with segments, notes and custom fields.
Not in Fly.io's documentation.
Revenue analytics
MRR, churn, retention and trials, out of the box.
Not in Fly.io's documentation.
Email campaigns
An email builder, sent from your own domain.
Not in Fly.io's documentation.
Automations
A visual builder: triggers, conditions and actions, without code.
Not in Fly.io's documentation.
Affiliate programs
Run your own affiliate program: members, commissions and payouts.
Not in Fly.io's documentation.
App Store keywords and reviews
Track your keyword rankings and every new review.
Not in Fly.io's documentation.
AI
MCP for coding agents
Meridian MCP connects Cursor, Claude Code and Claude Desktop to your apps: catalog, deploys, logs, with your own permissions.
An experimental MCP server in its command-line tool: apps, logs, machines, secrets, volumes.
Security and trust
SSO and audit logs
On Enterprise.
Google or GitHub single sign-on on every account. Audit logs not in its documentation.
Certifications
None published yet.
SOC 2 Type 2, and a HIPAA package for $99 a month.
Data processing agreement
Not available yet.
Published, pre-signed.

A highlighted cell marks the side that comes out ahead on that row. Rows without one depend on what you need.

Sources

Every Fly.io value comes from Fly.io’s own pages, checked on 10 October 2026. Prices and features change, so check them before you decide. Meridian’s values come from our pricing and documentation.

Spotted something out of date? Tell us

Questions.

Is Meridian cheaper than Fly.io?

Not for hosting alone. One app with production and staging is about $45 a month on Fly.io and $69 on Meridian Lite. On Fly.io you build the rest: staging as a separate app, preview workflows, rollbacks from the command line, webhook handling and Shopify API upgrades. Meridian includes them, with support and no overage bills.

Can I move my app from Fly.io to Meridian?

Yes. Meridian builds and runs the same kind of app from your GitHub repository. Meridian's managed database is MySQL, so a PostgreSQL or SQLite app switches Prisma's provider and runs its migrations once. Migration help is included on Enterprise.

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