Free hosting — serverless functions + edge (CF Workers, Deno Deploy, AWS Lambda EXCEPTION, Render, Koyeb, Val.town, HF Spaces, Modal — 2026-06-23 audit)

runbook Tue Jun 23 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) runbookhostingfree-tierserverlessedgecloudflare-workersdeno-deployaws-lambdarenderkoyebhugging-facemodalval-town

Serverless functions + edge — free tiers (verified 2026-06-23)

Adversarially re-verified against the official pricing pages on 2026-06-23. Sources cited per row. AWS Lambda remains a user-approved exception to the no-card rule (see rules/infrastructure/aws-lambda-exception.md). GCP Cloud Run, Oracle Functions, Vercel Hobby (commercial-use ban), Cloudflare Containers (paid-plan-only), and Fly.io (free tier killed) are all DROP in 2026.

The 4-rail fallback chain (production order, 2026-06-23)

1. Cloudflare Worker    (primary;     100K req/day,   10 ms CPU,         edge,  no card)
2. Deno Deploy          (secondary;   1M req/mo,      15 CPU-h/mo,       edge,  no card)
3. AWS Lambda           (tertiary;    1M req/mo,      400K GB-sec/mo,    region, CARD REQ — exception)
4. Render Free          (quaternary;  750 inst-h/mo,  15-min cold sleep, region, no card)

Order updated 2026-06-23: Lambda promoted to rail 3 (was 4), Render demoted to rail 4 (was 3). Rationale: Lambda has the family's biggest perpetual free quota, no cold-sleep penalty, and AWS infra is uncorrelated with CF/Deno. Render stays in chain as last-resort (its 15-min spin-down makes it strictly worse for user-facing paths).

A possible rail 5 (no-card alternative): Koyeb free instance (512 MB RAM, 0.1 vCPU, 2 GB SSD, no card) — replaces Fly.io which killed its free plan. Useful as a no-card fallback when the Lambda exception is unavailable for a given workload.

A possible rail 5 (prototype-only): Azure Functions under the user's Azure Student account. NOT a production rail.

The verified table

What changed in 2026 (vs. the 2026-06-22 snapshot)

Where the family runs functions today (2026-06-23)

• API endpoints under *.api.oriz.in → Cloudflare Workers (DNS CNAME → workers.dev, custom domain on the Worker)
• Per-site dynamic endpoints → Cloudflare Pages Functions (functions/ dir in each Pages project) — same Workers Free quota
• Cron / scheduled jobs → Cloudflare Workers Cron Triggers (same Workers Free quota); GitHub Actions for build/repo-side cron
• Anything that needs >10 ms CPU → Deno Deploy (CPU-hours budget instead of per-invocation cap)
• AI inference (light) → Workers AI (10K Neurons/day free) or HF Spaces ZeroGPU (free, quota-limited)
• AI inference (heavy / GPU) → Modal Labs ($30/mo credits, card on file)
• Fallback if all of the above fail → AWS Lambda (rail 3, exception) → Render Free (rail 4, cold sleep)

Quota math for a 50-site fleet (unchanged from prior snapshot)

100K req/day on Workers Free is the shared cap. For 50 sites:

• 1 cron call/hour each: 1,200 req/day → 1.2% of cap
• 100 user req/day each: 5,000 req/day → 5% of cap
• 1 req/sec sustained each: 4.3M req/day → 43× over cap

Cap holds for sparse / cron / lightweight-API traffic. Static + edge cache should absorb the user-traffic bulk; functions only for auth/checkout/search-style paths.

Quirks per provider (2026-06-23 view)

• Cloudflare Workers 10 ms CPU per invocation. Hard. Image processing, heavy AI, big JSON crunching trips it. Mitigation: Deno Deploy (CPU-h budget) or Workers Paid Standard ($5/mo, but breaks no-card rule).
• Deno Deploy Classic is dead. Migration cliff was 2025-07. Current product = "Deno Deploy" (no Classic suffix). Volume storage, memory-time, CPU-time billing model applies.
• AWS Free Plan auto-closes after 6 months. This is the new 2026 model. To keep Lambda's 1M req/mo perpetual quota, the account must be on Paid Plan with card on file. The user-approved Lambda exception still holds — see rules/infrastructure/aws-lambda-exception.md for hardening (budgets, service-quota floor, reserved concurrency).
• Render Free spins down after 15 min idle. ~1 min cold restart. Not suitable for user-facing critical paths — purely a last-resort rail.
• Koyeb free instance is small. 512 MB / 0.1 vCPU / 2 GB SSD. Fine for a Node/Python API server with light traffic; not for memory-hungry workloads.
• Cloudflare Containers is $5/mo gated. No free tier exists. If a workload needs containers, the family should reach for Render Free (free, with cold sleep) or Koyeb free instance first.
• Vercel Hobby commercial ban is enforced. Stays DROP.
• Netlify credit pool: 300 free credits shared across functions/build/bandwidth/AI/etc. Each function request costs 2 credits per 10K. Hard to reason about with 50 sites — DROP per user decision.
• GCP Cloud Run is DROP despite generous quota — user is aggressive about avoiding Google beyond Firebase.
• Fly.io free plan is dead. Card required on every org. Dropped.
• Azure Functions Linux Consumption is retiring 2028-09-30; Flex Consumption is the path forward. Student account still works as a 5th-rail prototype.
• HF Spaces ZeroGPU is the surprise upgrade — RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell GPU access for free, quota-based, perfect for image/video gen demos.

Recommendation for the family (2026-06-23)

1. Rail 1 (primary): Cloudflare Workers + Pages Functions for all edge-grade work. 100K req/day across the fleet.
2. Rail 2 (secondary): Deno Deploy for anything exceeding 10 ms CPU per invocation.
3. Rail 3 (tertiary) — USER-APPROVED EXCEPTION: AWS Lambda. Per aws-lambda-exception. Lambda only, no other AWS services. Account on Paid Plan to keep the perpetual quota past 6 months.
4. Rail 4 (quaternary): Render Free (with 15-min cold sleep) — last-resort rail.
5. Rail 5 candidate (no-card alt): Koyeb free instance (512 MB / 0.1 vCPU / 2 GB SSD) — replaces Fly.io, useful when the Lambda exception isn't appropriate for a given workload.
6. AI specialty: HF Spaces ZeroGPU (free GPU, quota-based, public Spaces) for demos; Modal ($30/mo credits, card req) for heavier GPU jobs; Workers AI (10K Neurons/day) for light inference.
7. CI/repo cron: GitHub Actions on public repos (unlimited minutes).
8. Never reach for: GCP Cloud Run, Oracle Functions, Vercel Hobby (commercial ban), Netlify Functions (credit-pool unpredictability), Fly.io (free tier dead), Cloudflare Containers (paid-only), Azure Functions on non-student account (production).

Sources (verified 2026-06-23)

• Cloudflare Workers pricing
• Cloudflare Pages Functions pricing
• Cloudflare Workers AI pricing
• Cloudflare Queues pricing
• Cloudflare Cron Triggers docs
• Cloudflare Containers pricing — paid-only confirmed
• Deno Deploy pricing · Deno Deploy limits
• AWS Lambda pricing · AWS Free Tier FAQs · AWS Free Tier
• Render Free docs · Render pricing
• Fly.io pricing · Fly.io plans
• Koyeb docs intro · Koyeb pricing
• Val.town pricing
• Hugging Face pricing · Spaces overview · ZeroGPU docs
• Modal pricing
• Replicate pricing · Replicate billing docs
• Netlify pricing
• Vercel Hobby plan
• Azure Functions pricing · Consumption costs · Consumption plan legacy notice
• GitHub Actions billing