Fly.io Problems & Issues

A recent HN thread described 'destructive and erratic behavior from Fly.io's automated systems resulting in total loss of data across multiple organizations.' Users report apps and databases being deleted in unrelated organizations without warning, raising serious data safety concerns.

Fly.io has developed a reputation for reliability problems. HN users report 'application uptime is flakey' with Redis/Postgres timeouts a couple times per month. One user experienced TLS certificate renewal failure causing 8 hours downtime. Another reported 24 hours of intermittent 502 errors while status page showed 99.99% uptime.

Fly.io Postgres has recurring issues: databases failing health checks, connection problems happening 'way too frequently for anything stable', databases getting stuck in read-only mode after migrations, and clusters not coming up healthy in certain regions. One HN post reported a Postgres cluster down for 3 days with no response.

Fly.io changed defaults from dedicated to shared IP addresses, breaking existing deployments and causing users to lose business. Such infrastructure changes without adequate notice or migration paths create significant risk for production applications.

Users experience deployments that hang and fail for no clear reason, requiring retry attempts hours later. Builds fail frequently, new rollouts get stuck, and new Postgres instances sit in limbo. The CI system feels unreliable with spontaneous automation failures.

Users report difficulty predicting costs. One user's bill jumped 70% ($14 to $24) with no changes. Another reported $50-60/month for a low-traffic side project. Hidden costs include: dedicated IPv4 at $2/month per app, volumes charged whether used or not ($0.15/GB), and internal-only apps still consuming resources.

Fly.io doesn't support billing alerts, so costs can spiral without warning. Free allowances don't cap your bill - you're automatically charged for overages. Users report receiving $25 unauthorized charges and attempted $747 charges. The complex per-second billing model makes budgeting nearly impossible.

Fly.io no longer offers a general free tier for new organizations, though documentation still references it. Legacy users retained early allowances, causing confusion. Users signing up expecting free hosting are surprised by credit card requirements and daily reminder emails with no unsubscribe option.

Despite promising simplicity, Fly.io has significant operational overhead. Teams not fluent in Docker face steep onboarding. Users must understand images, processes, volumes, and networking quirks. The platform's complexity masks configuration challenges that slow development velocity.

Compared to Heroku or Render, Fly.io has fewer integrated services. Background workers, queues, object storage, and third-party integrations often require manual wiring of external services. This adds complexity for teams expecting a more complete PaaS experience.

Users report sending multiple support emails without responses and tickets pending for weeks. While Fly.io has community forums, direct support requires paid plans. Some users with billing disputes found the company unresponsive to urgent issues.