Free App Hosting in 2026
Where a startup can host an app for free today, what each free tier or credit covers, when it sleeps or runs out, whether a card is needed and what the first paid plan costs, read from each host's own page.
Free allowances read on each provider's own pages, all checked on or after . Hosts change their free tiers often, and several have ended theirs: confirm the terms on the host's page before you deploy something people rely on.
Hosts where you can run an app for free today include Render (750 free instance hours a month), Cloudflare Workers and Pages (100,000 Worker requests a day), Oracle Cloud ($300 for 30 days, plus Always Free), Zeabur (Free tier, $0 a month), and Netlify ($0 forever, 300 credits a month). Each of the 25 free tiers and credits below links to the host's page that states it, with its main limit, what it runs, whether a card is needed and what the first paid plan costs.
Most apps can start on a free host: a backend on a platform that deploys from your repository, a frontend on a static and serverless host, or a small server on a cloud's always-free tier. Several well-known free tiers have ended in recent years, so what is free now matters more than what was free when a tutorial was written.
The headline rarely tells you how far it goes. A free web service can sleep after a few minutes without traffic, a monthly allowance of hours or requests can run out mid-month, a credit ends after a trial, and some hosts ask for a card before anything runs. Each host below shows what is free, its main limit, what it runs, whether a card is needed and what the first paid plan costs, quoted from the host's own page with the date we read it.
Which hosts we picked and the order they appear in are our editorial choices; the terms are the hosts'. Some of these hosts pay us a referral commission when someone signs up through our link: those links are labeled, and they play no part in which hosts are listed or where.
Hosts for full-stack and backend apps
Platforms that run your web services, APIs, workers and containers from a repository or an image, with a free allowance to start.
- 1
Render
Full-stack web apps and APIs, with a free database
Render's Free web services get 750 free instance hours a month and spin down after 15 minutes without traffic. The first paid workspace plan is Pro at $25 a month plus compute.
- First paid plan
- Pro: $25 a month, plus compute (source: render.com)
Start free at RenderTerms read on render.com on Render: the free allowance and how to start Render for Startups: what startups get - 2
Zeabur
Trying a full-stack app with no card to start
Zeabur's Free Plan is its free tier and needs no credit card, but its services sleep when idle. The Dev plan is US$5 a month after a 14-day trial.
- What's free
- Free tier, $0 a month (source: zeabur.com)
- What it runs
- Any language or framework (source: zeabur.com)
- Payment card
- No credit card required (source: zeabur.com)
- First paid plan
- Dev: US$5 a month after a trial (source: zeabur.com)
- 3
Koyeb
One small web service that can sleep when idle
Koyeb's free Instance gives each organization one web service with 512MB of RAM and 0.1 vCPU, which scales to zero after 1 hour without traffic. Koyeb requires a credit card to sign up, and its Starter plan is pay-as-you-go.
- Payment card
- Card required to sign up (source: koyeb.com)
- First paid plan
- Starter: pay per second past free (source: koyeb.com)
Start free at KoyebTerms read on koyeb.com on Koyeb: the free allowance and how to start Koyeb for Startups: what startups get - 4
Northflank
Always-on services, jobs and one database
Northflank's free Sandbox gives up to $20 a month of free resources on Northflank Cloud across 2 services, 2 jobs and 1 database, with no card needed to start. Pay-as-you-go starts from $0.01667 per vCPU hour.
- Payment card
- No card needed (source: northflank.com)
Start free at NorthflankTerms read on northflank.com on Northflank: the free allowance and how to start - 5
Google Cloud Run
Container APIs and web apps with light traffic
Cloud Run's free tier includes 2 million requests a month. Free tier usage is aggregated across projects by billing account and resets every month, and you are billed only for usage past it.
- First paid plan
- Pay per use past the free tier (source: cloud.google.com)
Start free at Google CloudTerms read on cloud.google.com on Google Cloud Run: the free allowance and how to start - 6
Railway
Small apps and workers, with a $5 trial to start
Railway's Free plan starts with a 30-day trial of $5 in credits, then $1 a month, with no credit card needed to deploy a project. Each service is capped at 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB RAM, and the Hobby plan includes $5 of monthly usage credits.
- Payment card
- No credit card required (source: railway.com)
- First paid plan
- Hobby: from $5 a month (source: railway.com)
Start free at RailwayReferral linkTerms read on railway.com on Railway: the free allowance and how to start - 7
Zerops
Trying a full stack before you pay
Zerops offers up to $65 in sign-up credits, and no credit card is required to start. Its free Lightweight Core includes 15 build hours a month.
- What it runs
- Up to 50 runtime containers (source: zerops.io)
- Payment card
- No credit card required (source: docs.zerops.io)
- First paid plan
- Serious Core: $10 a month (source: docs.zerops.io)
- 8
Fly.io
Testing a Machine before you add a card
Fly.io has no free tier for new organizations, but new accounts get a free trial of up to 2 hours of Machine runtime or 7 days, with no credit card needed to start. After the trial, a Machine costs $2.19 per 30 days of continuous runtime.
- Payment card
- No card needed for the trial (source: fly.io)
- First paid plan
- Pay per second, from $2.19 a month (source: fly.io)
- 9
Clever Cloud
Trying a European PaaS app without a card
Clever Cloud gives new sign-ups free credits to try the platform, with no payment card required. Resources are billed by the second after that.
- First paid plan
- Pay per second for resources used (source: clever-cloud.com)
Start free at Clever CloudTerms read on clever-cloud.com on Clever Cloud: the free allowance and how to start
Hosts for frontends, static sites and serverless functions
Platforms built for static sites, frontend frameworks and functions at the edge, plus backends as a service, most with a standing free plan.
- 1
Cloudflare Workers and Pages
Edge functions and static sites on one network
Workers Free includes limited usage of Workers and Pages Functions, with 10 milliseconds of CPU time per invocation. Workers Paid starts at a $5 USD monthly minimum for an account.
Start free at CloudflareTerms read on developers.cloudflare.com on Cloudflare Workers and Pages: the free allowance and how to start - 2
Netlify
Sites and functions under 300 credits a month
Netlify's Free plan builds and deploys any framework and costs $0 forever, with 300 credits a month. When a site reaches its monthly limit it pauses until the next billing cycle; Personal starts at $9 a month.
- First paid plan
- Personal: $9 a month, 1,000 credits (source: netlify.com)
Start free at NetlifyReferral linkTerms read on netlify.com on Netlify: the free allowance and how to start - 3
Firebase Hosting (Spark plan)
Static and single-page web apps, no card
Firebase Hosting on the Spark plan keeps 10 GB of storage at no cost and needs no payment method. Once the 10 GB monthly transfer limit is passed, the sites are disabled after a short grace period.
Start free at FirebaseTerms read on firebase.google.com on Firebase Hosting (Spark plan): the free allowance and how to start - 4
GitHub Pages
Open-source projects and personal static sites
GitHub Pages is available in public repositories with GitHub Free, for static sites built from HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Published sites have a soft limit of 100 GB of bandwidth a month.
Start free at GitHubTerms read on docs.github.com on GitHub Pages: the free allowance and how to start GitHub for Startups: what startups get - 5
Deno Deploy
Personal and smaller JavaScript projects
Deno Deploy's Free plan costs $0 a month for personal use and smaller projects, with 1M inbound requests a month. Pro is $20 a month for team collaboration with advanced features.
- Main limit
- 1M requests a month (source: deno.com)
- What it runs
- Serverless JavaScript apps (source: deno.com)
- First paid plan
- Pro: $20 a month, team features (source: deno.com)
- 6
Vercel Hobby
Personal, non-commercial projects only
The Hobby plan includes 100 GB of fast data transfer and 1,000,000 function invocations. Its terms restrict it to non-commercial, personal use, and Pro is $20 a month.
- First paid plan
- Pro: $20 a month (source: vercel.com)
- 7
Appwrite
Auth, database and functions in one project
Appwrite's Free plan gives 5GB bandwidth, 2GB storage and 750K executions a month. Free projects are paused after 1 week of inactivity, and Pro starts from $25 a month.
- First paid plan
- Pro: from $25 a month (source: appwrite.io)
Start free at AppwriteTerms read on appwrite.io on Appwrite: the free allowance and how to start Appwrite Startups: what startups get
Cloud servers with an always-free tier or free credits
Clouds that rent virtual machines, with a small server free for good or a credit to spend in your first weeks.
- 1
Oracle Cloud
Free VMs with a 30-day US$300 credit
Oracle gives a US$300 cloud credit for 30 days and Always Free services, including AMD VMs of 1/8 OCPU and 1 GB each. A credit or debit card is required to sign up.
- What it runs
- Arm and AMD Compute VMs (source: oracle.com)
- Payment card
- Card required (source: oracle.com)
- First paid plan
- Pay As You Go past free amounts (source: oracle.com)
Start free at Oracle CloudTerms read on oracle.com on Oracle Cloud: the free allowance and how to start - 2
Google Cloud
A free e2-micro VM in a US region
A US$300 Welcome credit valid for 90 days, plus one e2-micro VM a month free within the Free Tier in a US region. You must provide a credit card or other payment method at signup.
Start free at Google CloudTerms read on docs.cloud.google.com on Google Cloud: the free allowance and how to start - 3
AWS
Credits and EC2 with no card for most
Up to $200 in credits over 6 months, and no payment method is required to sign up for most new customers. Amazon EC2 can be tried at no cost with the Free Tier.
- First paid plan
- Paid plan, pay-as-you-go pricing (source: aws.amazon.com)
Start free at Amazon Web ServicesTerms read on aws.amazon.com on AWS: the free allowance and how to start - 4
Microsoft Azure
Burstable VMs free for 12 months
A $200 credit for 30 days, then free monthly amounts of burstable Linux or Windows VMs for 12 months. A card is needed, with a temporary $1 hold that is reversed.
Start free at MicrosoftTerms read on azure.microsoft.com on Microsoft Azure: the free allowance and how to start - 5
Hetzner
Linux cloud servers with a €50 credit
Hetzner gives new customers €50 in starting credit, redeemable within 14 days of account creation and valid until the end of the billing month. Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and other Linux distributions are available for its cloud servers.
- What it runs
- Linux cloud servers (source: hetzner.com)
- First paid plan
- From €5.99 a month, excl. VAT (source: hetzner.com)
- 6
DigitalOcean
A small credit for Droplets, no promo code
DigitalOcean applies a $5 signup credit to your first team, and no promo code is required. The credit expires 90 days after signup, and you must add a payment method before creating Droplets. Droplets start at $4 a month.
- First paid plan
- Droplets from $4 a month (source: digitalocean.com)
Start free at DigitalOceanTerms read on docs.digitalocean.com on DigitalOcean: the free allowance and how to start - 7
Akamai Cloud (Linode)
US$100 credit for a new Linode account
A US$100 credit is applied to a new account. A 1 GB VM is billed at $0.0075 an hour.
- What it runs
- Cloud VMs (Linode) (source: linode.com)
- First paid plan
- 1 GB VM from $0.0075 an hour (source: linode.com)
Start free at Akamai (Linode)Terms read on linode.com on Akamai Cloud (Linode): the free allowance and how to start - 8
UpCloud
A 7-day trial of Cloud Servers
New users get a free trial that lasts 7 days, with Cloud Servers capped at 2 cores and 4 GB. The card is verified but not charged. Cloud Servers start at €3 a month.
- Payment card
- Card verified, not charged (source: upcloud.com)
- First paid plan
- Cloud Servers from €3 a month (source: upcloud.com)
Start free at UpCloudReferral linkTerms read on upcloud.com on UpCloud: the free allowance and how to start - 9
Cloudways
Trying managed WordPress or PHP hosting
Cloudways offers a 3-day free trial for its Flexible and Autonomous plans with no credit card required, and the trial covers WordPress, Magento, Laravel and PHP apps.
- Payment card
- No credit card needed (source: cloudways.com)
Start free at CloudwaysReferral linkTerms read on cloudways.com on Cloudways: the free allowance and how to start
Hosting and cloud startup programs
Programs from hosts and clouds that give startups credits or discounts on paid plans, largest tracked value first. Most ask for an application, and the largest for funding or a partner investor.
Also useful for cloud and hosting
Referral links, picked for fit and ordered by fit (70%) and what a signup earns us (30%), at no cost to you. They never change this page's ranking.
Compare the top options
How this comparison is built
The list covers hosts a founder can deploy an app on for free today without applying to a program, grouped into hosts for full-stack and backend apps, hosts for frontends and serverless functions, and clouds that rent servers. The order and the "best for" notes are our editorial reading of each host's terms. Every term comes from the host's own pricing or documentation page on the date shown, never from a third-party list; follow each link for the full conditions. A service that sleeps when idle, a monthly usage cap or a credit that runs out can matter more than the headline, so the comparison quotes them wherever the host states them. Several of these hosts pay StartupPerks a referral commission, and their links are labeled as referral links; that decides neither whether nor where a host appears, and no host pays for a placement on this page.
Read the full methodologyCommon questions
Where can I host a full-stack app for free?
Several hosts run a backend free today, each with a catch. Render's free web services get 750 instance hours a month and spin down after 15 minutes without traffic, Northflank's free Sandbox gives up to $20 a month of resources across 2 services, 2 jobs and 1 database, Koyeb's free instance runs one web service with 512 MB of RAM that scales to zero after an hour, and Zeabur's free tier sleeps services when idle.
Is Heroku still free?
No. Heroku's own changelog says that as of November 28, 2022 it is "no longer offering free dynos, hobby-dev Heroku Postgres, or hobby-dev Heroku Data for Redis plans". The hosts on this page are where a free Heroku app can move.
Does Railway have a free tier?
Railway's Free plan starts with a 30-day trial of $5 in credits, then gives $1 a month, with no card needed to deploy, and each service is capped at 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB of RAM. The Hobby plan starts at $5 a month and includes $5 of monthly usage.
Can I host an app for free without a credit card?
Yes, on several hosts. Zeabur, Northflank, Railway, Zerops and Firebase Hosting say no card is needed for their free allowance, Fly.io's trial starts without one, and Cloudways' 3-day trial needs none. Koyeb, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud and Microsoft Azure ask for a card at sign-up, DigitalOcean before you create a server, and UpCloud verifies a card without charging it.
Can a startup use Vercel's free plan?
Only for personal projects. Vercel's Hobby plan is free with 100 GB of data transfer, but its terms restrict it to non-commercial, personal use; Pro costs $20 a month. Startups can apply to Vercel for Startups, listed below the comparison, for credits on paid plans.
Which cloud gives a free virtual machine?
Oracle Cloud's Always Free services include AMD VMs of 1/8 OCPU and 1 GB each, next to a US$300 credit for 30 days. Google Cloud's Free Tier includes one e2-micro VM a month in a US region, and Azure's free account includes 750 hours a month of burstable VMs for 12 months. AWS gives new customers up to $200 in credits over 6 months.
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