Hello,

I’m deploying a basic web app using the following setup:

• Next.js for the frontend

• Express for the server

• PostgreSQL for the database

I'm currently on the Hobby plan.

I recently migrated from GCP Cloud Run to Railway, mainly due to the rising costs on GCP. I’m using Railway to keep my infrastructure serverless, and I don’t mind the cold start delays.

However, I’m encountering a particular issue. In my app, there's a feature where users can hit an API endpoint that generates an invoice PDF via a third-party service. The server temporarily saves the PDF to its file system, then sends an email or WhatsApp message to the customer with a public URL to download the PDF directly from the server.

On Cloud Run, downloading a 128KB PDF takes less than a second. On Railway, it takes around 5 seconds.

This is a critical issue for my SaaS — I can't have customers waiting 5 seconds to download a simple PDF.

Additionally, frontend images are loading noticeably slower.

I don't mind upgrading to the Pro plan if that resolves the network speed issue. But if there’s something I’m missing or need to configure differently, please let me know how I can improve performance.

P.S. On Cloud Run, I was using the europe-west1 (Belgium) region, and on Railway I’m using europe-west4 (Netherlands). Since these locations are geographically close, I don’t believe the region is the issue. I'm based in the Middle East, so I have to rely on European servers.