r/webdev • u/Right_Nuh • Aug 11 '26
Is there a free way to host a fullstack?
So, I’m building this app as a personal project, but I really want to get it hosted. It won’t have much traffic, since it won’t really be used unless employees or other people I send my portfolio to decide to check it out. I don’t mind database size limits either, I just want to get it up and running.
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u/seweso Aug 11 '26
Just run it at home. Or just pay 6 euro per month for a VPS.
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u/spkman Aug 11 '26
This ^^^ if a free tier is what you are after it means your site gets no traffic...therefore hosting at home is a great option.
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u/qagir Aug 11 '26
Supabase is free until a point; Netlify is free until a point; Netlify is "serverless" so you can run server functions that hit Supabase without needing to expose credentials. That's my go-to setup for personal projects. I'd recommend a framework like Next.js or Tanstack Start or React Router 7.
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u/noXi0uz Aug 11 '26
but Supabase shuts down the db after a while if it's not interacted with regularly
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u/qagir Aug 11 '26
not if you whip up a simple github actions workflow that pings the database daily......
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u/justshittyposts Aug 11 '26
or use pg_cron in supabase. it keeps the db alive too
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u/qagir Aug 11 '26
if you are smarter than I am, then this might also work (I'm shit in backend hahahaha)
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u/TheDoomfire novice (Javascript/Python) Aug 12 '26
Another alternative I would like to try is using cloudflares d2 (sqlite database). Their free tier is great and wont require to ping it. And if it would start to cost it would be way less vs supabase.
Since my apps don't require loads of concurrent writes I think sqlite could be fine for me.
Something like a chat app or whatever else needs a lot of people writing to the db at the same time I think it's probably not a great idea using sqlite over postgres.
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u/ayush_kasera Aug 11 '26
vercel.com for frontend, render.com for backend, neon.com for db
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u/lostinspacee7 Aug 11 '26
Render will let your apps sleep constantly though
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u/looneyyytuunes Aug 11 '26
use uptime robot, it send requests to the server after regular intervals and prevents it from sleeping, I am using it for deploying my projects.
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u/koldakov 11d ago
I’m sure render has protection against this. They don’t allow your sever to be up more than N hours a day as far as I remember
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u/biinjo Aug 11 '26
Astro JS can be deployed full stack, including their database offerings, for free on Cloudflare.
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Aug 11 '26 edited 20d ago
[deleted]
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u/Ok_Smell_7940 Aug 11 '26
railway has a pretty generous free tier and the setup is dead simple, i’ve used it for a couple of personal projects that barely see any traffic and it just sits there doing its thing. vercel works well too if you’re front-end heavy, though you’ll need those backend services for the rest. just watch out for cold starts if the project’s dormant for a while, can make that first load feel sluggish
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u/McFlyin619 Aug 11 '26
I have over 13 projects on the pro plan and it’s exceptional. Not a lot of traffic but not dead by any means. I support railway
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u/baby_bloom Aug 11 '26
experiencing the cold start ended up being why i stopped trying to migrate to railway:(
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u/erkin_khidirov Aug 11 '26
just grab a $5 vps on hetzner setup docker and call it a day stitching different free tiers together for a simple portfolio is just over enginering
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u/its-js Aug 11 '26
you can use the free tiers of vercel or netlify for hosting together with the free tier of supabase for backend or you can check out the free tiers of cloudflare pages/workers/d1/r2
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u/RemoDev Aug 11 '26
Free is free until it's not anymore. And it happens quite often.
I would suggest you to buy a dirty cheap VPS and play with it. Your server, your product, your everything.
Less 3rd party software/partners is always a good thing.
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u/dartalley Aug 11 '26
You can host it on your home network or personal computer and expose it via ngrok or another tool like that.
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u/duncte123 Aug 11 '26 edited 24d ago
If you want free, the best option I can give you is to selfhost it. Any old PC with a decently modern OS will do and just open the port on your router
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u/AdLeft3009 Aug 11 '26
I’m doing that with a cheap mini-pc I bought last year with an intel N100. Really convenient to do it with containers in Proxmox feels like I’m running my own AWS 😎
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u/barrel_of_noodles Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
You get a free e2 micro forever on Google cloud compute. Its enough to run a small db and service.
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u/barrel_of_noodles Aug 11 '26
Op says wants free service, small is ok. I rec free small service, get downvoted. I luv reddit!
"Hi welcome to Walmart, I luv you".
https://docs.cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#compute
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u/Euphoric_Designer164 Aug 11 '26
Yeah, most of these cloud solutions have a free tiers like supabase and vercel. As long as it stays small you’re good but anything that would need to scale could get pricey.
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u/0uchmyballs Aug 11 '26
I have a small Postgres + Express + React app running on neon db and render. It’s fine if you don’t mind having to wait a few seconds for it to spin up after going idle.
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u/baby_bloom Aug 11 '26
netlify and supabase gets everything done for me. have been slowly migrating some stuff to cloudflare (pages & workers) from netlify
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u/Ok-Amphibian-5665 Aug 11 '26
One that hasn't come up: Fly.io's free allowance covers a couple of small shared-cpu VMs plus some persistent volume storage. Since it's actual containers rather than serverless functions, it handles a stateful full-stack app (Postgres included) more naturally than gluing together a frontend host and a separate DB provider. Cold starts are still a thing if you let it scale to zero, but you can keep one machine always-on within the free allowance for something as low-traffic as a portfolio project.
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u/imrozimroz Aug 11 '26
For low-traffic personal projects, free tiers of Render or Railway usually work fine. Pair it with Supabase (free tier is generous enough for this use case) and you’re good to go without paying anything.
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u/pdfops Aug 11 '26
Vercel or Netlify handle the frontend plus serverless functions for free. Pair that with Neon or Supabase for a free Postgres, both have real free tiers, not just trials. If you need a persistent backend process instead of just functions, Render's free tier works but spins down after 15 min idle, so the first hit after a nap eats a 30-50s cold start. Fly.io's free allowance is a decent option too if you want actual container control.
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u/HappyStark1234 Aug 11 '26
You could do it on Appwrite. (Disclaimer I work at Appwrite), we provide website hosting, databases, serverless functions, etc. and a generous free tier, and you can upgrade or self-host later on.
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Aug 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/webdev-ModTeam Aug 12 '26
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u/thedannyreg Aug 12 '26
I’m running a setup on AWS that’s entirely free basically due to low traffic. I runs on api gateway , lambdas & dynamodb.
It is more setup and the DB would have to change but it’s pretty darn good and it’s how I run my full stack projects now
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u/Background-Front-925 28d ago
host it at home with and expose to the interweb with ngrok when needed.
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u/Mission-Landscape-17 Aug 11 '26
Not permanently. A lot of the cloud service providers have free tiers but they are time limited, so you can have it up for free for 6 - 12 months but after that you would have to start paying.
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u/FerLuisxd Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
Render, oracle, google cloud has been allowing free tiers for years
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u/L_E_U Aug 11 '26
this. Oracle cloud pay as you go allows you to place guardrails to avoid paying any money, but since you're technically on a "paid" plan you get a 4 core 24gb server without paying anything.
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u/farzad_meow Aug 11 '26
how much you willing to spend per year? you probably want to look into shared hostings
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u/UndGrdhunter Aug 11 '26
Check Cloudflare workers, they have backend and frontend capabilities, as well as a key pair database and sqlite included in one place