Best Hosting Platforms for Side Projects

Free and Cheap Hosting for Side Projects

You don't need to pay for hosting until you have real traffic. Here's where to host for free or cheap.

Frontend Hosting (Static/Jamstack)

Vercel

Best for: Next.js, React, frontend Free tier: Generous, covers most side projects

Strengths:

• Best Next.js support (they made it)
• Preview deployments on PRs
• Edge functions
• Great performance
• Simple CLI

Limitations:

• Expensive past free tier
• Serverless function limits

Deploy: Push to Git, auto-deploys

Netlify

Best for: Jamstack sites, forms Free tier: 100GB bandwidth, 300 build minutes

Strengths:

• Easy setup
• Built-in forms
• Identity (auth)
• Edge functions
• Great free tier

Limitations:

• Build times can be slow
• Less Next.js focused

Deploy: Git push or drag-and-drop

Cloudflare Pages

Best for: Global performance Free tier: Unlimited bandwidth!

Strengths:

• Best free tier (unlimited)
• Fast global CDN
• Workers for backend
• Good analytics

Limitations:

• Less features than Vercel/Netlify
• Newer platform

Deploy: Connect Git repo

Full-Stack Hosting

Railway

Best for: Full-stack apps, databases Free tier: $5 credit/month

Strengths:

• One-click databases
• Environment management
• Good DX
• Reasonable scaling

Limitations:

• Free tier limited
• Can get expensive

Deploy: Nixpacks auto-detect, Git push

Render

Best for: Heroku alternative Free tier: Static sites free, services sleep

Strengths:

• Simple pricing
• Good free tier
• Databases included
• Docker support

Limitations:

• Free tier sleeps
• Slower cold starts

Deploy: Git push, auto-deploy

Fly.io

Best for: Global deployment, Docker Free tier: 3 shared VMs, 3GB storage

Strengths:

• Deploy anywhere globally
• Full Docker support
• Good performance
• Built-in Postgres

Limitations:

• Learning curve
• CLI-focused

Deploy: flyctl deploy

Databases

PlanetScale (MySQL)

Free tier: 1 billion row reads/mo Best for: MySQL, branching workflow

Neon (Postgres)

Free tier: 3GB storage Best for: Postgres, Vercel integration

Supabase

Free tier: 500MB, 2 projects Best for: Postgres + auth + storage

Turso (SQLite)

Free tier: 9GB storage Best for: Edge, SQLite lovers

Quick Recommendations

Static site / SPA

→ Cloudflare Pages (unlimited free) or Vercel (better DX)

Next.js app

→ Vercel (best integration)

Full-stack with database

→ Railway or Render + managed database

Docker app

→ Fly.io or Railway

Maximum free

→ Cloudflare Pages + Supabase + Turso

Cost Comparison at Scale

| Platform | 100K requests | 1M requests | |----------|--------------|-------------| | Vercel | $0-20 | $40-200+ | | Netlify | $0-19 | $25-100+ | | Railway | $5-20 | $20-100 | | Render | $0-7 | $25-85 | | Fly.io | $0-5 | $20-50 |

Deployment Tips

1. Use environment variables

Never commit secrets. All platforms support env vars.

2. Set up preview deployments

PRs should auto-deploy for review.

3. Monitor your usage

Free tiers have limits—set alerts.

4. Use CDN for assets

Offload images to Cloudflare R2 or similar.

5. Optimize cold starts

Serverless has cold starts—keep functions small.

Spawned Deployment

Spawned apps can be exported and deployed to:

• Vercel (recommended for Next.js)
• Netlify
• Railway (with backend)

Or stay on Spawned's hosting with built-in:

• Custom domains
• SSL certificates
• Global CDN