What's an easy way to deploy Spring Boot and Postgres without much ops experience?

Railway sounds like a sensible first test. Start with one app and one managed Postgres database, connect the repository for automatic deployments, and configure the database connection through environment variables.

Check the combined app and database costs against your budget before committing. Set up backups before storing anything you care about, and verify how you'd restore one. You can always explore a VPS later without making it a prerequisite for getting the project online.

If the goal is to learn deployment as well as save money, a small VPS is worth considering. Run the app manually first and get comfortable with the basics before adding containers or a complicated build pipeline.

The tradeoff is that you take on more of the setup and maintenance yourself, including the database and backups. That's not necessarily the best choice if you just want the project running with minimal fuss.

Render and Fly.io are also worth comparing with Railway. For your particular app, check how each handles Java deployments, managed Postgres, backups, and the cost of keeping both services running. Don't choose based on the app hosting price alone.

You could split things up to make use of free allowances, such as hosting Postgres with Neon or Supabase and the app elsewhere. That may keep costs down for a small project, but it also means more accounts and services to manage. A single platform is probably simpler if staying under budget is enough.