← Back to Blog

Best Free Cloud Hosting 2025: Actually Free Options That Work

· 10 min read

Quick Picks

  • Best for learning: AWS Free Tier (12 months)
  • Best truly free forever: Oracle Cloud Free Tier
  • Best for web apps: Vercel/Netlify (hobby tier)
  • Best for databases: PlanetScale/Neon (free tier)
  • Most generous: Google Cloud ($300 credit)

The Truth About "Free" Hosting

Let's be honest: most "free" hosting has catches. Here's what you need to know before signing up for any free tier:

  • Time limits: Many are only free for 12 months
  • Credit card required: You can still get charged if you exceed limits
  • Performance: Free tiers are usually slower/limited
  • Support: Little to no customer support
  • Restrictions: Usage caps, bandwidth limits, storage limits

1. Oracle Cloud Free Tier ⭐ Best Forever-Free Option

What You Get (Forever Free)

  • 2 AMD-based Compute VMs (1 OCPU, 1GB RAM each)
  • OR 4 Arm-based Ampere A1 cores + 24GB RAM (can split into 4 VMs)
  • 200GB total Block Volume storage
  • 10GB Object Storage
  • 2 Oracle Autonomous Databases (20GB each)
  • 10TB outbound data transfer/month

✓ Truly free forever, no credit card required initially

⚠️ Setup is complex, UI is confusing, support is limited

2. AWS Free Tier - Best for Learning

12-Month Free Tier

  • 750 hours/month t2.micro or t3.micro EC2 (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM)
  • 5GB S3 storage
  • 750 hours/month RDS database (db.t2.micro or db.t3.micro)
  • 1GB data transfer out

Always Free

  • 1 million Lambda requests/month
  • DynamoDB 25GB storage
  • CloudFront 1TB data transfer

✓ Excellent learning resources, huge ecosystem

✗ Credit card required, easy to accidentally exceed limits and get charged

3. Google Cloud Platform - Most Generous Credits

$300 Free Credit (90 days)

Plus always-free tier:

  • 1 f1-micro VM instance (0.2 vCPU, 0.6GB RAM)
  • 30GB HDD storage, 5GB snapshot storage
  • 5GB Cloud Storage
  • 2 million Cloud Function invocations/month
  • 1GB App Engine storage

✓ $300 credit is very generous for experimentation

⚠️ Credit card required, always-free tier is quite limited

4. Vercel/Netlify - Best for Web Apps & Static Sites

Vercel Free (Hobby)

  • Unlimited websites
  • 100GB bandwidth/month
  • Serverless functions
  • Automatic HTTPS
  • Global CDN
  • Preview deployments

Netlify Free

  • Unlimited websites
  • 100GB bandwidth/month
  • Edge functions
  • Automatic HTTPS
  • Global CDN
  • Build minutes: 300/month

✓ Perfect for Next.js, React, Vue apps. No credit card needed. Super easy.

5. Render - Great Free Alternative to Heroku

Free Tier

  • Web services (sleep after 15 mins of inactivity)
  • PostgreSQL database (90 days, then $7/mo)
  • Redis (free 90 days)
  • Cron jobs
  • Static sites (unlimited, free forever)

✓ No credit card required, very easy to use

⚠️ Free web services sleep when inactive (15-30s cold start)

6. Free Database Hosting

PlanetScale

  • 5GB storage
  • 1 billion row reads/month
  • 10 million row writes/month
  • MySQL compatible (Vitess)

Great for hobby projects

Neon (PostgreSQL)

  • 3GB storage
  • Serverless Postgres
  • Auto-pause when inactive
  • Unlimited databases

Best free Postgres option

Supabase

  • 500MB database
  • 1GB file storage
  • 50MB storage for Realtime
  • Auth, Storage, Realtime included

Firebase alternative

MongoDB Atlas

  • 512MB storage
  • Shared cluster
  • Free forever
  • Good for learning

Classic NoSQL option

My Recommended Free Stack for Side Projects

$0/month Full Stack

  • 🖥️
    Frontend: Vercel (Next.js) or Netlify (React/Vue)

    100GB bandwidth, global CDN, automatic deploys

  • 💾
    Database: Neon (PostgreSQL) or PlanetScale (MySQL)

    Serverless, generous free tier

  • 🔐
    Auth: Clerk or Supabase Auth

    5,000-10,000 users free

  • 📧
    Email: Resend (3,000 emails/month) or SendGrid (100/day)

    More than enough for side projects

  • 📦
    File Storage: Cloudflare R2 (10GB free) or Vercel Blob

    S3-compatible, zero egress fees

Common Free Hosting Mistakes to Avoid

  1. Not setting up billing alerts - Even on "free" tiers, set up $5-10 alerts
  2. Running 24/7 services on free tiers - Use services that auto-pause (Render, Neon)
  3. Storing important data only on free tiers - Always have backups
  4. Not reading the fine print - Know when free credits expire
  5. Using free tier for production - Free is for learning/testing, not business-critical apps

When to Upgrade from Free Hosting

You should upgrade to paid hosting when:

  • You're making money from your project (even $1/month)
  • You have real users who depend on uptime
  • You're hitting free tier limits regularly
  • You need better performance or support
  • You need custom domains with SSL (some free tiers don't offer this)

Ready to Scale Beyond Free?

Compare paid hosting options starting at just $4/month

Find Your Perfect Plan →

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I run a business on free hosting?

Technically yes, but it's not recommended. Free tiers have limitations that will hurt your business (downtime, slow performance, no support). Once you're making money, invest $10-20/month in proper hosting.

What happens when my AWS free tier expires?

After 12 months, you'll automatically start getting charged for any resources you're using. Set up billing alerts BEFORE your free tier expires to avoid surprise charges.

Is Oracle Cloud really free forever?

Yes, Oracle has committed to keeping their "Always Free" tier free forever. However, they may reclaim resources from abandoned accounts (no activity for 90+ days).

Can I use multiple free tiers at once?

Yes! Many developers use Vercel for frontend, Neon for database, Cloudflare for CDN, etc. This "free tier arbitrage" can give you a surprisingly powerful stack at $0/month.

While we cover free options, this site is supported by affiliate commissions from paid hosting providers. We only recommend services we've actually used and believe in.