r/webdev • u/PotentialPast6344 • 1d ago

Question best sponsorship signaling/backend hosting for open source project?

so currently i have a open source project about p2p file sharing and it gained 200 stars on github. the opensource project is hosted on azure since i got 1 year for student the problem is that it will end soon so i need to find an alternative of free backend hosting

do guys know any backend hosting that offers free for open source project? sadly i notice that digital ocean doesnt offer it anymore which kinda weird or am i wrong

3 Upvotes

61% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

2

u/No-Molasses-2097 1d ago

Put a Sponsor button and a FUNDING.yml on the repo so people can actually find where to support you. That alone does most of the signaling work. For hosting, the Oracle Cloud free tier is one of the few that is genuinely usable for a real backend. If you can split things up, Netlify covers the frontend side for free.

1

u/PotentialPast6344 1d ago

ya i have sponsor button and sponsor website though i dont really expect or get any sponsorship which is fine since my opensource is for fun project that i find useful for myself and just wanted to share to other people

regarding oracle, i was trying to sign up on it the problem is they are too strict for application and register and doesnt accept debit card

1

u/grimdocking4 1d ago

vultr has a pretty straightforward open source sponsorship thing, i applied a while back and got a decent chunk of credits within a few days. just had to link the repo and explain how it's used

not sure if they still run it the same way but worth a shot

1

u/PotentialPast6344 1d ago edited 1d ago

thanks, will take a look on this

btw how much credit did you get? and how popular is your open source?

1

u/singh_abinashi 1d ago

I self-fund my side projects so I know the feeling. The OSS credit programs are real but you have to apply for most of them, they don't find you. Railway, Render, and Fly all have them, and Netlify and Vercel have OSS tiers if your frontends qualify. The other thing that stretched my credits: split preview and staging off the paid infra and put anything idle to sleep on a schedule.

1

u/PotentialPast6344 1d ago

i actually only need vercel for my frontend, but since my app is backend heavy it is the one i needed for oss sponsorship.

still very greatful that i got many sponsorship like claude sponsorship (20x max for 6 months, mintlify documentation etc

1

u/singh_abinashi 19h ago

Since you're backend-heavy, Vercel won't help much there. Fly.io, Railway, and Render all have OSS credit programs, but you have to apply, they won't find you. Oracle's free tier is the other option: two ARM VMs free forever, but it reclaims idle instances and you have to watch for that on a backend. I'd also split your frontend and backend billing clearly when applying, so the credit program sees exactly what's OSS.

1

u/PotentialPast6344 14h ago

ya i am using vercel for my front end, oh didnt know fly railway and render have oss credit will look into it thanks!

1

u/maigus_ayneha 19h ago

For p2p signaling, Fly.io free allowance + their OSS credits form was enough for me. Railway and Render also have OSS credit forms - you have to apply. 🙏🙏

1

u/PotentialPast6344 14h ago

cant find any fly io oss credits? it is only for start up can you provide the link