bex vs Fly.io
bex and Fly.io solve similar problems with different execution models. bex is a Render-style PaaS for long-running services; Fly runs Firecracker microVMs close to users. This page compares capabilities where a team would weigh self-hosting against Fly's global edge.
bex and Fly.io, capability by capability
| Capability | bex | Fly.io | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs on servers you own | Yes | No | 1 |
| Whole-stack deploys from one manifest file | Partial
bex.yml describes the whole stack in one file; Fly's fly.toml configures a single app, with Machines API for the rest. | Yes | 2 |
| REST API for platform resources | Yes | Yes | 3 |
| Private images from any container registry | Yes | Yes | 4 |
| Managed Postgres with high availability and followers | Yes | Yes | 5 |
| Managed Redis / Valkey | Yes | Partial
Fly's Redis is Upstash-backed — a partner service, not a Fly-operated datastore. | 6 |
| SSH into a running instance | Yes | Yes | 7 |
| Native runtime builds without a Dockerfile | Yes | Yes | 8 |
| Environment variables and secrets | Yes | Yes | 9 |
| Projects and organisation grouping | Yes | Yes | 10 |
| Scheduled jobs and cron | Yes | Yes | 11 |
| Health checks and deploy verification | Yes | Yes | 12 |
Where Fly.io is the better fit
Notes
- Fly's primitive is the Machine — a single microVM you start, stop and place. bex's primitive is the service — a replicated, health-checked deployment from a manifest.
- Migrating from Fly is moving from Machine orchestration to service manifests; both run containers, but the scaling and grouping model differs.
- You can draft a render.yaml from a fly.toml before signing up: the bex.co Fly.io converter maps processes to web and worker services, release_command to a pre-deploy command, HTTP checks to a health check path and a single mount to a disk, lists every Fly setting that does not map, and checks the draft with the render.yaml checker.
Sources
- 1.fly.io/docs/reference/regions/ checked August 19, 2026
- 2.fly.io/docs/reference/configuration/ checked August 19, 2026
- 3.fly.io/docs/machines/api/ checked August 19, 2026
- 4.fly.io/docs/reference/registry/ checked August 19, 2026
- 5.fly.io/docs/postgres/ checked August 19, 2026
- 6.fly.io/docs/reference/redis/ checked August 19, 2026
- 7.fly.io/docs/flyctl/ssh-console/ checked August 19, 2026
- 8.fly.io/docs/reference/builders/ checked August 19, 2026
- 9.fly.io/docs/reference/secrets/ checked August 19, 2026
- 10.fly.io/docs/reference/apps/ checked August 19, 2026
- 11.fly.io/docs/reference/scheduled-machines/ checked August 19, 2026
- 12.fly.io/docs/reference/health-checks/ checked August 19, 2026
- 13.fly.io/docs/reference/volumes/ checked August 19, 2026
- 14.fly.io/docs/reference/machines/ checked August 19, 2026
- 15.fly.io/docs/reference/autostart-autostop/ checked August 19, 2026
- 16.fly.io/docs/reference/private-networking/ checked August 19, 2026
- 17.bex.co/docs/platform/service-types checked August 19, 2026
- 18.bex.co/docs/platform/render-parity checked August 19, 2026
- 19.bex.co/tools/fly-to-render-yaml checked October 1, 2026
- 20.fly.io/pricing checked August 19, 2026