Limits checked on 1 Nov 2026
95 free plans across 10 lanes, from a 2-minute static site to an always-free server. Each one shows its real limits, whether it needs a card, when it sleeps or expires, and what you pay once free runs out.
Start here
Pick the lane your project lives in. Each page ranks every provider in it by how few strings the free plan has.
Fit finder
Answer two questions. The list only shows plans that meet every box you tick, ranked by free-tier score.
Shortlists
Worked out from the data by rule, so a plan that loses its free tier drops off by itself.
Static, custom domain, no card
Framework support on the free plan
Runs a server process for free
PHP + MySQL on a free plan
No end date on the free tier
No renewal fee, ever
Always-free VM
Commercial use allowed, no card
Top free-tier scores across static, app, server, PHP and database hosting.
Serverless SQLite
SQLite databases that run alongside Cloudflare Workers on the free Workers plan.
The catch: Only 100,000 row writes per day, which resets daily.
Edge static hosting
Static and full-stack sites served from Cloudflare's network, with no bandwidth charge.
The catch: A site cannot hold more than 20,000 files or any single file over 25 MiB on the free plan.
Serverless edge
Serverless functions and full-stack apps running on Cloudflare's edge network.
The catch: Each request gets only 10 ms of CPU, which heavy server-side rendering can exceed.
BaaS + hosting
Google's app backend: static hosting, auth and Firestore on the free Spark plan.
The catch: Cloud Functions, App Hosting and (for new projects) Cloud Storage need the pay-as-you-go Blaze plan.
Static + serverless
Git-based hosting for static and Jamstack sites, with functions, forms and edge features.
The catch: Every production deploy costs 15 credits, so about 20 deploys a month uses the whole free allowance before any traffic.
Free PHP hosting
Ad-free free hosting for one small PHP site with a database and email.
The catch: Only one database is shared by all your sites, and traffic stops at 5 GB per month.
Free PHP hosting
Free VistaPanel PHP hosting from the iFastNet family, the same network behind InfinityFree.
The catch: Like other free VistaPanel hosts, hidden CPU and hit limits can suspend a busy site.
Non-profit pages
Static hosting from a Codeberg repository, run by a German non-profit.
The catch: New users must use the new git-pages setup, which needs a webhook; the old v2 server is closed to new users.
Edge runtime
Runs JavaScript and TypeScript apps on Deno's global network, deployed from GitHub or the CLI.
The catch: Egress is only 20 GiB a month, far below most static hosts.
Free domains
A truly free name today is a subdomain or a student offer. None of these bill you; read the catch before you print it on a card.
| Service | You get | Costs | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| FreeDNS (afraid.org) | yourname.mooo.com (one of many shared domains) | Free, no renewal fee | Shared domains belong to other people, who can pull them, so don't build anything important on one. |
| Duck DNS | yourname.duckdns.org | Free, no renewal fee | It's built for pointing at a home server's IP, not for a polished public brand. |
| is-a.dev | yourname.is-a.dev | Free, no renewal fee | Root names must relate to software development and maintainers reject AI-written or sloppy requests. |
| JS.org | yourproject.js.org | Free, no renewal fee | Only for sites with real content clearly connected to JavaScript. |
| eu.org | yourname.eu.org | Free, no renewal fee | Requests are checked by hand, so approval can take a long time, and small commercial sites are discouraged. |
| .pp.ua (NIC.UA) | yourname.pp.ua | Free, no renewal fee | Your name and contact details are always public in WHOIS, and every renewal needs the same phone number. |
| DigitalPlat FreeDomain | yourname.dpdns.org | Free, no renewal fee | It's a free community project with no uptime promise, and its old Telegram channel was hijacked, so only trust the GitHub repo and dashboard. |
| GitHub Student Developer Pack | — | 1 year (domains) | The free domains last one year and then renew at normal price, and you must stay a verified student. |
| Namecheap for Education (nc.me) | — | Not stated (usually 1 year) | After the free term the domain renews at Namecheap's normal price. |
| Azure for Students | yourapp.azurewebsites.net | 12 months (renewable) | Once the $100 runs out, paid resources stop until you renew or upgrade. |
Head to head
Side-by-side limits, card rules, sleep behaviour and paid prices.
Every limit on this page was read from the provider's own pricing or limits page, linked on each provider page as "Official pricing". The whole list was last checked on 1 Nov 2026. Free tiers change often, so check the official page before you build on one. Spotted something out of date? Tell us through the contact page and we fix it.
No provider pays to be listed or ranked, and provider links are plain links to their official sites.
Every plan starts at 50 and earns points for what makes a free tier safe to build on:
It is not a speed or quality rating, just how few strings are attached.
Free tier graveyard
Old tutorials still point at these. If a guide tells you to use one, look for its replacement in the lanes above.
Zeabur is shutting down: shared-cluster services pause on 1 December 2026 and all servers and clusters close by 31 December 2026.
The original Deno Deploy (dash.deno.com) and its subhosting v1 API shut down on 20 July 2026; apps had to move to the new Deno Deploy.
The free Basic plan was dropped around September 2026 when pricing moved to Standard and Mission Critical; new orgs now get a 30-day, $400 trial instead.
DigitalOcean left the GitHub Student Pack in 2026; all $200 pack credits expired 31 July 2026.
Project hosting and user profiles shut down on 8 July 2025; code export stayed open until the end of 2025.
For accounts created from mid-July 2025, the old 12-month free tier (e.g. 750 h/month t2/t3.micro) was replaced by up to $200 credits and a 6-month free plan.
Hosted Postgres service (with free 'Tiny Turtle' plan) stopped sales on 1 May 2024 and shut down on 27 January 2025.
PocketBase host ended free accounts for new users on 10 January 2025; now a 7-day trial then $9.99/month per instance (existing users grandfathered).
Free allowances (3 small VMs, 3 GB volumes, 100 GB transfer) ended for new organisations on 7 October 2024; new accounts get only a trial of 2 machine-hours or 7 days.
Stopped new sign-ups on 8 July 2024 and shut down fully on 14 October 2024; users were moved to paid Hostinger plans.
Free Hobby MySQL plan was announced for removal in March 2024 and ended on 8 April 2024; PlanetScale has no free plan now.
New registrations stopped March 2023; ICANN ended its accreditation Nov 2023; Freenom left the domain business Feb 2024 and most of its free domains stopped working.
Sold to Squarespace; deal closed 7 Sep 2023 and all domains had moved to Squarespace by 10 Jul 2024.
The free Starter plan with $5 of recurring monthly credit ended on 1 August 2023 (new sign-ups got a one-time $5 from 3 July 2023); it was replaced by a trial.
Free dynos, free Heroku Postgres and free Redis ended on 28 November 2022; the cheapest option is now the $5 Eco dyno, which sleeps after 30 min.
Xata's hosted cloud no longer lists a free plan; only the self-hosted open-source edition is free. Exact end date not confirmed.
Guides
Plain-English explainers, based on each provider's own documentation.
Next steps
Check a name, set up DNS and test the site once it is live. All free, in the browser.
Where to list a new site so search engines and people find it.
Most people end up choosing between two hosts. Put them in one table and the catch decides for you.
It depends on what you host. For a static site, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages and Netlify are the strongest free plans. For an app or API, Render and Cloudflare Workers still have real free tiers. For a free server, Oracle Cloud's Always Free tier is the most generous. Use the fit finder on this page to match one to your project.
For a portfolio, a blog, docs or a small business landing page, yes. Static hosts serve from a global CDN even on free plans. Free app hosting is weaker: apps often sleep when idle and have monthly hour or request caps, so a site with steady traffic usually outgrows it.
You can get a free subdomain forever, such as yourname.eu.org, yourname.is-a.dev or a DuckDNS name. A top-level name like yourname.com is only free for a first year, through student packs or hosting bundles, and then renews at the normal price.
Freenom, which gave them away, stopped new registrations in March 2023 and left the domain business in 2024. Many existing names stopped working. It is in the free-tier graveyard on this page.
Most static hosts (GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, Vercel), several PHP hosts such as InfinityFree, and backend services such as Supabase, Neon and MongoDB Atlas sign you up without a card. The big clouds (Oracle, Google Cloud, AWS, Azure) ask for one to verify you. Use the No card filter.
No. Heroku ended free dynos and free Postgres on 28 November 2022. Render, Koyeb and Railway's small free allowance are the closest replacements; each provider page lists its current limits.
Yes. Oracle Cloud Always Free and Google Cloud's e2-micro have no end date inside their limits. Both need a card for verification, and anything you create outside the free shape is billed, so set a budget alert.
Check the terms. Vercel's free Hobby plan is for non-commercial use only, and GitHub Pages is not meant for running an online shop. Cloudflare Pages, Netlify and most PHP hosts allow commercial sites on free plans. The Commercial use OK filter shows which do.
Every limit was read from the provider's official pricing or limits page, and the date it was last checked is shown at the top of the page and on every provider page. Free tiers change often, so always confirm on the official page before you commit.