AZIN vs Render: Your Cloud or Shared Infrastructure

Render modernized the Heroku deployment model. Clean dashboard, git-based deploys, managed databases, zero-downtime rollouts — many developers view it as the natural evolution of what Heroku started. AZIN takes that same simplicity and adds something Render does not offer at any tier: deploy to your own cloud account.

This comparison covers pricing, infrastructure ownership, database hosting, autoscaling, compliance, and the scenarios where each platform is the stronger choice. All data verified as of February 2026.

#Quick comparison

All data verified as of February 2026.

#The core difference

AZIN deploys to your own GCP account via GKE Autopilot — your data, your infrastructure, your compliance boundary. Render deploys to shared infrastructure with no BYOC option at any tier (as of February 2026). Both follow the same git-push-to-deploy model.

Render's infrastructure runs on AWS under the hood. You get a clean abstraction, but your data, your containers, and your network live in Render's account. This is fine for prototypes and small projects, but for compliance-sensitive production workloads that require data residency in your own cloud account, Render's shared infrastructure model does not satisfy that requirement at any tier.

AZIN gives you a choice. Deploy to lttle.cloud (in early access) for the fastest, cheapest on-ramp with scale-to-zero. Or deploy directly to your own GCP account today, with AWS and Azure on our roadmap. Same console, same workflow. The infrastructure is yours.

This matters when you hit compliance requirements, need data residency in a specific geography, or want infrastructure billed directly by your cloud provider.

#Pricing breakdown

Render uses a two-part pricing model: a platform tier plus per-service compute costs.

Render pricing (February 2026)

AZIN pricing

AZIN separates the platform fee from infrastructure cost. On BYOC, infrastructure is billed directly by your cloud provider at their published rates.

On lttle.cloud (in early access), you pay for what you use. Scale-to-zero means idle workloads cost nothing.

A typical startup workload

Consider a web application with 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, and a managed Postgres database, running 24/7:

Render pricing based on published rates as of February 2026. AZIN costs vary by cloud provider and usage — see azin.run/pricing for current rates.

With Render, your costs scale with both seat count and service count. A 5-person team on Professional is $95/mo in platform fees alone before a single container runs.

With AZIN BYOC, infrastructure is billed directly by your cloud provider. The cost is what GCP charges you — with AWS and Azure on the roadmap.

#Database hosting

Database management is where the platforms diverge most sharply.

Render's database model

Render offers managed PostgreSQL and Redis on their infrastructure. The free PostgreSQL tier gives you 1 GB of storage, but it expires after 30 days. This was reduced from 90 days in May 2024. After expiration, you have a 14-day grace period to upgrade before databases that are not upgraded are removed. Free databases do not support backups.

Paid Postgres starts at $55/mo for the Pro tier. Redis is $10/mo for the lowest paid tier, with the free tier limited to 25 MB and data loss on restart.

AZIN's database model

AZIN provisions managed database services directly in your GCP account — Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL and Memorystore for Redis. Your data stays in your account, you get GCP's backup and replication features, and the database is visible in your own cloud console.

This changes the compliance equation entirely. When an auditor asks "where does your data live?" the answer is "in our GCP account, encrypted with our KMS keys" rather than "on Render's shared infrastructure."

#Autoscaling and performance

Render's scaling model

Render's autoscaling is gated behind the Professional plan at $19/user/mo. On the free Hobby tier, services have fixed resources and no autoscaling.

Additional constraints as of February 2026:

• Maximum 100 autoscaling instances per service
• Services with persistent disks cannot autoscale
• No scale-to-zero on paid plans (free tier sleeps after 15 minutes of inactivity)
• Paid services run 24/7, even with zero traffic

AZIN's scaling model

AZIN provides horizontal and vertical autoscaling. On lttle.cloud, scale-to-zero is built in — micro-VMs suspend when idle and resume on incoming requests targeting sub-10ms cold starts. You pay nothing when nothing is running.

On BYOC, autoscaling uses GCP's native GKE Autopilot capabilities. No arbitrary instance caps.

#Compliance and data residency

Render has earned SOC 2 Type II certification and ISO 27001 (certified December 2024). These are genuine achievements. Compliance documentation is accessible through their dashboard on Organization and Enterprise plans.

But there is a structural limitation: your data still lives on Render's infrastructure. SOC 2 certifies their practices, not your data's location. If your compliance requirements mandate that customer data stays in your own cloud account, Render cannot satisfy that at any tier.

AZIN takes a different approach. When you deploy to your own GCP account (with AWS and Azure on the roadmap), compliance is inherent. Data never leaves your cloud environment. Your existing cloud provider agreements, encryption keys, and audit logs apply. You do not need to evaluate a third party's SOC 2 report because the infrastructure is yours.

For teams subject to GDPR, HIPAA, or industry-specific data residency rules, this distinction often determines the platform choice.

#Infrastructure as code

Both platforms support declarative infrastructure configuration.

Render uses Blueprints with a render.yaml file:

# render.yaml
services:
  - type: web
    runtime: node
    name: my-app
    repo: https://github.com/your-org/your-app
    buildCommand: npm install && npm run build
    startCommand: npm start
    envVars:
      - key: DATABASE_URL
        fromDatabase:
          name: my-db
          property: connectionString
 
databases:
  - name: my-db
    plan: pro

AZIN uses a similar declarative format, but the deployment target is your cloud:

# azin.yaml
services:
  - name: my-app
    type: web
    build:
      command: npm install && npm run build
    start:
      command: npm start
    cloud:
      provider: gcp
      region: europe-west4
    resources:
      cpu: 1
      memory: 2GB
    autoscaling:
      min: 1
      max: 10
 
databases:
  - name: my-db
    type: postgres
    # Provisions Cloud SQL in your GCP account
    plan: db-g1-small

The key difference: Render's render.yaml deploys to Render's infrastructure. AZIN's config deploys to your cloud. The infrastructure lives in your GCP account (AWS and Azure on the roadmap), visible in your cloud console, managed by your IAM policies.

#Render's strengths

Render is an excellent platform. Acknowledging that honestly:

#AZIN's strengths

#When to choose Render

Render is the right choice when:

• You want the simplest Heroku replacement. Render's workflow mirrors Heroku more closely than any alternative. If you are migrating from Heroku and want minimal disruption, Render is the fastest path.
• You are prototyping and need a free tier. Render's Hobby plan lets you deploy a web service and a Postgres database for $0. No credit card. Good for hackathons, demos, and learning.
• Your team does not need BYOC or data residency. If compliance is not a factor and you are comfortable with shared infrastructure, Render's simplicity is hard to beat.
• You use GitLab or Bitbucket. Render supports all three major Git providers. If your team is on GitLab or Bitbucket, this is a practical advantage.
• You value Blueprints for IaC. Render's render.yaml is a mature, well-documented infrastructure-as-code solution.

#When to choose AZIN

AZIN is the right choice when:

• You need infrastructure ownership. Compliance, data residency, or the principle that your production data should live in your cloud account.
• You want cost transparency at scale. Infrastructure is billed directly by your cloud provider. At scale, this adds up.
• You need more than 5 regions. AZIN supports every GCP region (with AWS and Azure on the roadmap). Render limits you to Oregon, Ohio, Virginia, Frankfurt, and Singapore.
• You need scale-to-zero on production workloads. Render's paid plans run 24/7. AZIN's lttle.cloud (in early access) suspends idle workloads and is designed to resume them in under 10ms.
• You have Google Cloud credits to use. Google for Startups credits apply directly to AZIN GCP BYOC deployments. They do not apply on Render.
• You want a path to multi-cloud. AZIN runs on GCP today with AWS and Azure on the roadmap. Render uses their own managed infrastructure with no option to deploy to your own cloud account.

#Migration from Render to AZIN

Moving from Render to AZIN follows a standard parallel-deployment approach:

• Deploy the application on AZIN pointing to your cloud account
• Run both environments simultaneously
• Migrate the database (dump from Render Postgres, restore to your managed Cloud SQL instance)
• Switch DNS to the new deployment
• Decommission Render services

If your Render app uses a Dockerfile, it deploys on AZIN without code changes. If you use Render's native runtime detection, AZIN's Railpack auto-detection handles the same languages: Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, Rust, and more.

# Export your Render environment variables
# (from the Render dashboard, download your env vars)
 
# Deploy to AZIN targeting your GCP account
# (AZIN CLI is planned — commands shown are planned)
azin deploy --cloud gcp --region europe-west4
 
# Your app now runs in your GCP account
# Database provisioned as Cloud SQL in the same region

#Frequently asked questions

#Related comparisons

• AZIN vs Railway — Another popular Heroku replacement, with visual canvas and templates
• AZIN vs Heroku — Migrating from the original PaaS
• Deploy Flask with AZIN — Flask hosting on your own GCP account: Gunicorn, Cloud SQL, Memorystore
• Best Render alternatives in 2026 — Full roundup of platforms to consider
• Best Heroku alternatives in 2026 — 9 platforms compared with pricing and trade-offs
• AZIN vs Vercel — Full-stack BYOC vs the frontend cloud
• AZIN vs Flightcontrol — AWS-only BYOC vs multi-cloud deployment
• Railway vs Render — Head-to-head comparison without the BYOC angle

Render is a trademark of Render Services, Inc. All product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. AZIN is not affiliated with or endorsed by the companies mentioned on this page.