Cloud Run or Cloudish for an app that keeps its data in files?

We build Cloudish, so we wrote down where Google Cloud Run beats us — and where it doesn't — for a small app whose data lives in a file rather than a separate database.

"Cloud Run or Cloudish?" is not yet a question many people type, but the underlying point is: for a small web app with a SQLite database, does the host keep the database file? We build Cloudish, so this comparison is not neutral. Every number below links to the host's own docs or pricing page, checked on November 11, 2026.

Here is the app: a small web app with a SQLite file — a to-do app, a notes app, a personal dashboard. The kind of app an AI coding agent writes in an afternoon, and the kind where the whole "database" is one file next to the code.

Side by side

Where Cloud Run beats us

It is genuinely free for light apps. The free tier covers 2 million requests, 180,000 vCPU-seconds and 360,000 GiB-seconds a month. A to-do app opened a few times a week sits inside that forever. Cloudish's smallest size is $0.0107 an hour — cents, but not zero.

It has regions. Cloud Run runs in 43 regions. Cloudish has one datacenter, in New York, so a user in São Paulo, Singapore or Frankfurt feels the distance.

It is one service inside a whole cloud. IAM, Cloud Logging, Cloud SQL, a mature CLI — if your app is already a Google Cloud citizen, Cloud Run slots into that. Cloudish is a container host and not much else, by design.

Where Cloudish beats Cloud Run

The database file survives. This is the whole question. Cloud Run's filesystem is in-memory and its own docs are blunt: "Data written to the file system doesn't persist when the instance stops", and when the service scales to zero the instance is removed and its files with it. A SQLite file written there is gone. To keep file data on Cloud Run you mount a Cloud Storage bucket (Cloud Storage FUSE) or move to a real database — an extra service and an extra bill. Cloudish keeps the app's disk with the app, at no charge, across restarts and redeploys.

An agent can start without a person. On Cloudish, an agent mints its own key with one call — no sign-up form, no browser, no card. Cloud Run needs a person to hold the Google account and a billing account. When the deploy is done by an agent and nobody is around, that difference is the whole game.

Spending is prepaid and capped. Cloudish credits are prepaid (one credit is one dollar), so the balance can't slip below zero — at zero the app stops within a minute. Cloud Run bills the attached billing account, so a runaway app bills until someone notices.

The honest verdict

• Choose Cloud Run if a person is there to set up the Google account and billing, the app is stateless or already uses a real database, and you want the free tier or many regions.
• Choose Cloudish if an AI agent deploys the app on its own, the app keeps its data in a file, you don't want to hand over a card, or you want a hard spending cap.

Our limits, plainly: one datacenter (New York), no managed database, and a smaller machine is not our strong suit. Cloud Run's limits, plainly: an in-memory filesystem by default, a billing account to set up, and — like us — you're still on your own for backups.

Written by the team behind Cloudish, at Hal9.