Turn Zero Cloud compared with Fly.io
Fly.io runs your application's containers as Fly Machines, fast-launching VMs in regions around the world close to your users, with Managed Postgres, volumes, and Tigris object storage beside them. Turn Zero Cloud is a production backend for an application your coding agent builds: a running Node.js server with its database, file storage, sign-in, scheduled jobs, AI calls, and push notifications, through one MCP connection.
Fly.io is a product of Fly.io, Inc., named here for comparison only. This page is Turn Zero's, and Fly.io has neither reviewed nor endorsed it.
The short version
- Fly.io runs any container you give it, built from a Dockerfile or one that Fly Launch generates, in 17 regions, with Managed Postgres, volumes, and Tigris object storage to add. Sign-in for your users, push notifications, and AI calls are the application's own to build or call.
- Turn Zero Cloud runs your application as a server in its own container at its own address, with its database, storage, sign-in, jobs, AI calls, and push notifications beside it. Your coding agent deploys it and reads its logs through the connection it built it with.
- Fly.io prices by usage, with no monthly platform fee: Machines by the second while they run, storage on what you provision, and Managed Postgres by plan. It has a free trial but no free tier. Turn Zero Cloud prices per application: one free application for each account, then $10 or $35 a month.
- Both offer an MCP server. flyctl's, marked experimental, lets an MCP client such as Claude, Cursor, or VS Code run most commands for apps, Machines, volumes, secrets, certificates, and logs; Turn Zero Cloud's lets your agent create, deploy, and operate the backend itself.
Side by side
Fly.io's facts are read from its pricing and documentation pages on 2026-10-06. Check those pages for current figures.
| On | Turn Zero Cloud | Fly.io |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A production backend for an application built with a coding agent: the server and its services in one place. | A cloud that runs your containers as Fly Machines in regions near your users, with Managed Postgres, volumes, object storage, and private networking; Sprites, a separate product, give AI agents sandboxes to run code in. |
| Your application's server | Hosted. A Node.js server in its own container, at its own address under ai.host. | Hosted as Fly Machines, VMs running your container image in any of 17 regions, at a fly.dev address or a custom domain. Machines run all the time, or stop when idle and start again on the next request. |
| Database | A PostgreSQL database for each application, created with it. | Managed Postgres: a highly available cluster with automatic backups, connection pooling, and pgvector, in the regions that host it. The older Fly Postgres (unmanaged) is archived and no longer supported. |
| Sign-in for your users | Included: accounts and passkeys, with open or invitation-only sign-up, its users managed from your coding agent. | Not a Fly.io service; the application runs its own or calls one. |
| File storage | Included, for each application. | Tigris object storage, S3-compatible, created with fly storage create and billed by usage on the Fly.io bill. Fly Volumes are disks on one server in one region, at $0.15 per GB a month. |
| Scheduled jobs | Included, with each run's outcome recorded. | Scheduled Machines that start hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. For finer timing, the docs point to Cron Manager, a Fly app you deploy, or Supercronic inside your container. |
| AI calls | From inside your application, on an allowance every plan includes or on your own key. | No model-call service for apps on Machines; the application calls a model provider on its own key, stored as a secret. Sprites, Fly.io's separate sandboxes, reach OpenRouter through a managed connector. |
| Push notifications | Included, to iPhone and Android. | Not a Fly.io service; the application can call one. |
| Secrets | Stored by name through the connection, typed into your own terminal and never into the chat; an outside API's key is replaced without a redeploy. | fly secrets, encrypted in a vault and given to every Machine as environment variables. Setting one restarts the app's Machines, unless it is held for a later deploy. |
| Deploys, logs, and rollback | Your agent deploys and rolls back versions, promotes from a development environment when you add one, and reads each version's logs, counters, and deploy steps. | fly deploy replaces Machines by a rolling, canary, blue-green, or immediate strategy. A rollback redeploys an earlier release's image with today's configuration and secrets; logs tail live in the terminal or dashboard, and log search, in beta, keeps 7 days. |
| MCP server for coding agents | One server: it creates the application, stores its secrets, deploys it, and reads its logs and status. | flyctl's server, marked experimental, runs on your machine, with flags that add it to Claude, Cursor, VS Code, and other clients: it supports most commands for apps, Machines, volumes, secrets, certificates, status, and logs. |
| Free plan | One free application for each account; its capacity is on the pricing page. | No free tier. A free trial gives 2 hours of Machine runtime or 7 days, whichever comes first, with no credit card to start; trial Machines stop after 5 minutes of running. |
| Paid plans | Standard at $10 and Pro at $35 a month, for each application; every plan is free during the beta. | Pay As You Go, with no monthly platform fee. The smallest always-on Machine costs $2.19 per 30 days, Managed Postgres runs from $38 a month plus $0.28 per GB stored, and egress, a dedicated IPv4 address, and support are billed separately. |
When Fly.io fits better
You want to run any language or any container, not only a Node.js server, close to users in many regions at once, with control over each Machine's size, region, and lifecycle. Machines that stop when idle and pay-by-the-second billing suit traffic that comes and goes, and private networking, volumes, and several process groups in one app give you room to build the architecture you have in mind.
When Turn Zero Cloud fits better
Your coding agent is building a whole application, server included, and you want it to go from a prompt to a running address without choosing Machine sizes, attaching a database cluster, and adding sign-in, push notifications, and scheduled jobs on its own. One connection gives the agent all of it, and one plan for each application prices it, rather than a bill that follows usage.
Using both
An application on Turn Zero Cloud can call any outside service on keys stored by name. A service already running on Fly.io, such as a worker in another language, can stay there at its own address while the application's backend runs here.