Is IRCTC Rail Connect Discontinued? RailOne Guide (2026)

The UTS app was switched off on 1 March 2026. Its Google Play listing still carries the notice — "The UTSonMobile app will be permanently discontinued effective 1 March 2026. Users are advised to download the RailOne app" — and utsonmobile.indianrail.gov.in now returns a 404. If you bought general tickets on your phone, the app you used no longer exists, and most "best train app" articles still on the web were written before that happened.

That leaves a genuinely confusing field. Below is what each app is, who runs it, and what it costs. Every figure here was re-checked on 9 August 2026 against the source named alongside it.

The thing to understand before picking an app

None of these apps has its own seats. Reserved berths come out of one pool held by the Railways' Passenger Reservation System, and IRCTC is the ticketing arm that sells from it. ConfirmTkt, ixigo, RailYatri and Paytm are IRCTC agents. RailOne, despite being a government app, is also an IRCTC partner for reserved tickets — the launch release says so in its own words: "RailOne app has also been authorised by IRCTC just like many other commercial apps who have partnered with IRCTC" (PIB, 1 July 2025).

So no app can find you a berth another one can't. What differs is unreserved ticketing, the extras bolted on top, and what you get charged for them.

RailOne

Run by: Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), Ministry of Railways. Government.

Best for: General and platform tickets, and anyone who wants one app instead of three.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw launched RailOne on 1 July 2025 at CRIS's 40th Foundation Day (PIB, 1 July 2025). It is the public release of the SwaRail app that had been in beta since January 2025, and it absorbed the unreserved ticketing that UTS used to do. PIB said on 10 July 2026 that it had "crossed 4 crore downloads" and "become the largest railway ticket booking app". Worth putting that next to the Play Store, where RailOne's install bucket reads 10M+ and IRCTC Rail Connect's reads 100M+, accumulated since long before RailOne existed. The government's release does not say what "largest" is measured on, so read it as a claim about current volume rather than lifetime installs.

What works well

• Sells unreserved journey, platform and season tickets, which none of the private apps here do — and it is where the Railways told UTS users to go
• Paying from the R-Wallet gets 3% off unreserved tickets (PIB, 1 July 2025)
• Single sign-on with mPIN or biometric, and it accepts your existing RailConnect and UTS credentials
• Rated 4.6 on Google Play against IRCTC Rail Connect's 3.4 (both checked 9 August 2026)

Watch out for

• The location restriction works the opposite way to what people assume. CRIS geo-fences railway premises, so you have to be far enough away from the station and tracks to buy an unreserved ticket. In CRIS's own words, this is "to prevent booking of tickets on seeing TTE/TC at platform or in train". No distance is published anywhere.
• For reserved tickets it is an IRCTC partner like any commercial app, not a shortcut into the reservation system
• Refund complaints for cancelled trains recur in recent reviews

What users say

• "Its biggest drawback is that tickets cannot be booked when a user is within the restricted distance of a railway station. This is a major problem during emergencies" (2 stars, 4 August 2026)
• "The app wouldn't let me proceed and asked me to move about 70 meters away from the tracks. By the time I moved away and completed the booking, the train had already left" (1 star, 12 June 2026 — the passenger's own account; CRIS does not publish a distance)

Pricing: Free | Package org.cris.aikyam, developer "Centre for Railway Information Systems" | RailOne on Google Play

IRCTC Rail Connect

Run by: Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Railways. Government.

Best for: Reserved tickets where you want to know the total before you pay.

This is the app most people mean when they say "the IRCTC app", and it is the only one on this page that publishes its own fee. It is also the lowest rated app in this comparison by a wide margin: 3.4 stars from 27.8 lakh reviews, against 4.4 to 4.8 for every private app here.

What works well

• Books direct, with no agent layer between you and the reservation system
• The fee is published in advance: Rs 15 + GST for SL and 2S, Rs 30 + GST for all other classes
• Full quota access — General, Tatkal, Premium Tatkal, Ladies, Divyangjan, Senior Citizen
• 12 tickets a month, or 24 if you Aadhaar-verify your account and at least one passenger

Watch out for

• The single most common complaint in recent reviews is money debited without a ticket. Refunds follow, but days later.
• Tatkal windows draw a wall of "high load" errors and forced re-logins
• Nothing beyond reserved tickets — no general, platform or season tickets
• Rated 3.4, below every alternative listed here

What users say

• "Around 80–90% of the time, my payment gets deducted but the ticket is not booked. I then have to wait 1–2 days for the refund" (1 star, 1 August 2026)
• "Once we click availability, we got an error 'High load issue' or unable to process request then logged out automatically. Nearly faced 12 times like this" (1 star, 25 July 2026)

Pricing: Free app | IRCTC convenience fee Rs 15 + GST (SL, 2S) or Rs 30 + GST (all other classes) | Visit IRCTC Rail Connect

ConfirmTkt

Run by: Le Travenues Technology Limited. Private, and the same listed company that owns ixigo.

Best for: Deciding whether a waitlisted ticket is worth booking.

ConfirmTkt appears on IRCTC's own authorised B2C service provider list, written there as "M/s Le Travenues Technology Ltd. (Confirm Ticket)" — twice, in IRCTC's own duplication. That settles the "is it legitimate" question from IRCTC's side rather than the app's marketing. Bookings produce a real IRCTC PNR.

What works well

• Waitlist confirmation prediction, which is the reason most people install it
• Alternate route and connecting-train suggestions when the direct train is full
• 4.8 stars, 100M+ installs (checked 9 August 2026)
• Listed by IRCTC itself, not merely self-declared

Watch out for

• No service fee is published. Its terms say only that "Additional Fees will be displayed to the User before confirming the booking", and there is not a single rupee figure anywhere on that page.
• The marketing says "IRCTC Authorised Partner"; the legal terms describe something narrower — that it "acts as a facilitator", that "User will be redirected to IRCTC website/application", and that you need your own IRCTC username and password
• The paid confirmation-guarantee and free-cancellation add-ons are not priced on the site either
• Cancellation deductions are a recurring complaint, specifically how they are labelled

What users say

• "I cancelled my sleeper ticket and the actual IRCTC cancellation charge is just ₹120, but these frauds deducted ₹240! The worst part? They cleverly labeled the whole amount as 'Railway Cancellation charge'" (1 star, 7 August 2026 — one user's account, not something we could verify against a published tariff, because there isn't one)

Pricing: Free app | Service fee not published; shown only at checkout | Visit ConfirmTkt

ixigo

Run by: Le Travenues Technology Limited, Gurugram. Private, Indian, listed on NSE and BSE under the symbol IXIGO.

Best for: Trains, buses and flights in one app.

The question people actually search here is whether ixigo and ConfirmTkt are the same thing. They are — not two companies in a partnership, but two brands of one listed company. ConfirmTkt's own terms of use name Le Travenues Technology Limited as the contracting party, in wording byte-identical to ixigo's user agreement, and ixigo's investor site refers to Confirm Ticket as "our erstwhile subsidiary" with a shared CEO. IRCTC's authorised list writes both as Le Travenues.

Two things follow. ixigo is not a government app — it is a private Indian company, incorporated and headquartered in India and traded on the Indian exchanges. And running the same search on ixigo and then on ConfirmTkt is not a second opinion; it is the same company twice.

What works well

• One app for trains, buses (AbhiBus is also ixigo) and flights
• Waitlist prediction, the feature ConfirmTkt is known for, from the same company
• 4.8 stars, 100M+ installs (checked 9 August 2026)
• On IRCTC's authorised B2C list under Le Travenues Technology Ltd.

Watch out for

• The service fee is unpublished, in a clause word-for-word the same as ConfirmTkt's
• Its paid confirmation-assurance products have no published price either, only published benefits
• The user agreement describes the same facilitator-and-redirect arrangement as ConfirmTkt's
• Its own terms make clear the ixigo fee, the IRCTC convenience fee and payment gateway charges are three separate non-refundable items

What users say

• "Ixigo takes 80 ₹extra for confirmed tickets. but we are on RAC. my question is why you give full guarantee for confirmed seats" (2 stars, 7 August 2026 — again a user's own figure; ixigo publishes no price for it)
• "App is fast, smooth and with all details about trains at one place... it shows a little bit of outdated WL status compared to RailOne app" (4 stars, 7 August 2026)

Pricing: Free app | Service fee not published | Visit ixigo

RailYatri, Paytm and PhonePe

RailYatri is run by Stelling Technologies Private Limited in Noida, which its own site footer confirms. It is not part of ixigo, despite being grouped with it constantly — IRCTC's list treats Stelling and Le Travenues as two separate providers. It is rated 4.4 with 5Cr+ installs, and it is the only app here that publishes any price at all, for its free-cancellation product. Its own pages then contradict each other: one page markets booking "at 0 Extra charges", while the terms list an agent service fee among non-refundable charges. Recent reviews are heavy on refund and customer-support complaints, including a 3 August 2026 report of the ticket showing a different destination than the one selected.

Paytm (One 97 Communications) sells train tickets and appears twice on IRCTC's authorised list. No per-ticket fee is published. See Paytm.

PhonePe sells train tickets too — its travel page lists "Trains: Quick and convenient train bookings". But searching IRCTC's 7-page authorised service provider list for "phonepe" returns zero hits, across every scheme in the document, while the same search finds Paytm twice, Ixigo twice, Confirm Ticket twice and Stelling twice. That is a checked absence, not an accusation: PhonePe is evidently booking under somebody's authorisation, and we could not establish whose. See PhonePe.

What it actually costs

IRCTC publishes its convenience fee: Rs 15 + GST per ticket for SL and 2S, Rs 30 + GST for all other classes. Note the wording — it is not "AC versus non-AC". First Class has no air conditioning and still sits in the Rs 30 bucket.

Payment charges are a separate line and get conflated with the fee constantly. From IRCTC's own payment gateway charges document dated 11 May 2026: UPI is nil, RuPay debit cards are nil, net banking is Rs 10 plus taxes, other domestic debit cards are 0.4% up to Rs 2,000 and 0.9% above, domestic credit cards run 1.0% to 1.8%, and UPI-linked RuPay credit cards and credit lines are 1%. Paying by UPI takes your bank charge to zero. It does not reduce the convenience fee.

Now the part that decides "cheapest". Not one third-party app publishes a per-ticket service fee. ConfirmTkt, ixigo, RailYatri, Paytm and PhonePe all either say the amount is shown before you confirm, or say nothing at all. We read the terms pages; the numbers are not on them. So booking direct through IRCTC is the only route whose total you can know before you reach the checkout screen. Anyone quoting you a fixed third-party fee is guessing.

Tatkal, honestly

Tatkal opens one day before the journey, excluding the date of travel, from the train's originating station: 10:00 for AC classes and 11:00 for non-AC. Those timings have not changed. What changed is authentication.

Tatkal charges are 10% of basic fare for second class and 30% for all other classes, subject to a published floor and ceiling:

Class	Minimum	Maximum
Second sitting (2S)	Rs 10	Rs 15
Sleeper (SL)	Rs 100	Rs 200
AC Chair Car (CC)	Rs 125	Rs 225
AC 3 Tier (3A)	Rs 300	Rs 400
AC 2 Tier (2A)	Rs 400	Rs 500

Since 1 July 2025, Tatkal on the IRCTC website and app can only be booked by Aadhaar-authenticated users, and PIB restated that as current on 25 March 2026. Authorised agents are barred from the first 30 minutes of each Tatkal window. First AC is excluded from Tatkal entirely.

On bots: IRCTC's anti-bot technology mitigates 64% of malicious traffic, 3.04 crore accounts were deactivated in 2025, and 1,80,474 were reactivated after revalidation (PIB, 25 March 2026). The Railway Minister's own summary in July 2026 was blunter: "Many steps have been taken to reduce bots in Tatkal booking. Still it is a continuous fight."

The official sources don't always agree with each other

Worth knowing before you go looking for rules yourself. IRCTC's own Tatkal FAQ states that "Tatkal bookings are allowed in all classes except First AC and Executive class" — and then, in a charge table on the same PDF, prices Executive Class Tatkal at Rs 400 to Rs 500.

The convenience fee is a similar story. The most recent government statement touching it, from March 2026, says only that "a very nominal convenience fee is levied by IRCTC" and gives no figure. The only primary document that states an amount is an IRCTC PDF authored in October 2023 and still being served today. And IRCTC's authorised-agent list carries no printed "as on" date at all — the March 2026 dating comes from the file's metadata.

Checking you have the real app

A search for "RailOne" turns up ad-supported information sites that are not the app and get basic facts wrong. railone.net, checked on 9 August 2026, describes itself in its own meta description as "RailOne by IRCTC" — RailOne is CRIS's, not IRCTC's — while its footer admits the site "is not affiliated with any government body or official organization". Neither that site nor railoneapp.org served us anything malicious, but neither is the app and neither is reliable. Verify by developer name and package name rather than by the icon:

• IRCTC Rail Connect — developer "IRCTC Official", package cris.org.in.prs.ima
• RailOne — developer "Centre for Railway Information Systems", package org.cris.aikyam

Note that the IRCTC app's package sits on a cris.org.in domain because CRIS built it. That is correct, not a red flag.

Quick comparison

App	Run by	Government or private	On IRCTC's authorised list	Reserved	Unreserved	Play rating	Fee published
IRCTC Rail Connect	IRCTC (PSU)	Government	It is IRCTC	Yes	No	3.4	Yes
RailOne	CRIS	Government	Yes (per PIB)	Yes	Yes	4.6	Free; 3% R-Wallet discount
ConfirmTkt	Le Travenues Technology	Private	Yes	Yes	No	4.8	No
ixigo	Le Travenues Technology	Private	Yes	Yes	No	4.8	No
RailYatri	Stelling Technologies	Private	Yes	Yes	No	4.4	Partly
Paytm	One 97 Communications	Private	Yes	Yes	No	4.7	No
PhonePe	PhonePe	Private	No	Yes	No	4.4	No

Ratings pulled from Google Play on 9 August 2026. Two caveats: the Paytm and PhonePe figures rate the whole payments app, not its train booking, so they are not comparable with the rest. And "on IRCTC's authorised list" refers to the list IRCTC itself publishes, which carries no printed date — March 2026 comes from the file's metadata.

Bottom line

If you buy general or platform tickets, RailOne is not a preference, it is the only app left for it now that UTS is gone (counters and ATVMs still work, of course). It is also the better rated of the two government apps by a distance, so if you want one app for everything, install that one.

If you only ever book reserved tickets and IRCTC Rail Connect already works for you, there is no reason to move. It is the only app whose total cost you can calculate before you pay, and it has no agent layer. Just budget for the payment-failure complaints being real and recent, and pay by UPI so the gateway charge is nil.

Use ConfirmTkt or ixigo when you genuinely want the waitlist prediction and accept paying an amount you'll only see at checkout. Remember they are one company, so checking both is not a second opinion.

What none of them can do is find you a seat the others can't. The inventory is one pool. If you want to see how the Indian options compare against the international booking tools people reach for, the Trainline alternatives page covers that, and the rest of the category sits under travel.