| Decision area | Gateways | Hosted PaaS / edge platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure boundary | Your AWS, Azure, or GCP accounts | Vendor-managed runtime |
| Operating model | Visual architecture, resource graph, environments, APIs | App/service deploy workflow |
| Control surface | Native cloud resources, connections, DNS, databases, servers, functions | Platform abstractions and add-ons |
| Best fit | Teams with compliance, existing cloud spend, multi-cloud, or platform ownership needs | Teams optimizing for fastest app deploy on one managed platform |
Feature Comparison
Use this matrix to understand the practical difference: hosted PaaS tools optimize the application deployment path, while Gateways focuses on operating the cloud estate behind and around those applications.| Capability | Gateways | Vercel | Netlify | Render | Fly.io | Heroku | Railway |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Own cloud | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Cloud control | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ | ⚠️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Provider access | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| SSH access | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ⚠️ |
| Cloud IDE | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Works if platform down | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Avoids vendor lock-in | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Visual infra | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Multi-cloud | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Projects/envs | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cloud billing | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Manage DNS | ✅ | ⚠️ | ⚠️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Git deploys | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Managed runtime | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Activity log | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ | ⚠️ | ⚠️ | ❌ |
| Infra API | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ | ⚠️ | ❌ | ⚠️ |
- ✅ Core capability
- ⚠️ Available in a narrower or platform-specific form
- ❌ Not the product’s main model
When Gateways Is The Better Fit
- Your cloud accounts are the source of truth. Gateways keeps compute, data, networking, DNS, and billing inside the AWS, Azure, or GCP accounts your organization already governs.
- You keep an escape hatch. If Gateways is unavailable, your resources still live in your cloud account, so your team can inspect, SSH into, or operate them directly through the cloud provider.
- You need clarity before the next deployment. Teams can see projects, environments, resources, and connections on one canvas instead of piecing together architecture from tickets, Terraform, spreadsheets, and provider consoles.
- You want platform speed without platform lock-in. Developers get a guided console and CLI workflow, while operators keep control of real cloud resources and provider-level policies.
- You care about more than “did it deploy?” Gateways connects resource state, activity, access, workspace membership, and APIs so delivery and operations share the same system of record.
Compare By Platform
- Gateways vs Vercel — frontend cloud and edge workflows vs owned cloud infrastructure.
- Gateways vs Netlify — composable web platform workflows vs owned cloud infrastructure.
- Gateways vs Render — managed PaaS services vs multi-cloud resource operations.
- Gateways vs Fly.io — global app runtime vs hyperscaler resource control.
- Gateways vs Heroku — classic dyno PaaS vs modern cloud architecture console.
- Gateways vs Railway — fast developer deploys vs team-owned cloud environments.