type: runbook
status: active
timestamp: 2026-06-22
tags: [runbook, hosting, free-tier, web-services, render, koyeb, fly-io, railway]

Free hosting — web services (Render, Fly, Railway, Koyeb, Replit, Cyclic, Glitch)

Web services free tiers: Render (sleep) and Koyeb (1 nano)

Web services + containers — free tiers (2026-06-22)

This is the most-eroded category. Fly.io perma-free, Cyclic.sh, Glitch hosting all died 2024–2025. Two no-card survivors remain.

The table

#	Provider	Free tier	Card@signup	Sleep / cold start	Custom domain	Commercial OK	Verdict
1	Render Free ⭐	Web service: 750 hrs/mo, 512 MB RAM, 100 GB egress, 500 build min/mo	NO	Sleep after 15-min idle, 30–60 s cold start	YES + free TLS	YES	KEEP
2	Koyeb Free ⭐	1 Nano Instance (0.1 vCPU / 256 MB) + 1 free Postgres, scale-to-zero	Conditional (only if anti-fraud can’t auto-verify humanity)	Scale-to-zero	YES	YES (never expires)	KEEP (with caveat)
3	Fly.io	Trial only: ~2 VM-hrs OR 7 days, then card required	YES	n/a (trial)	YES	YES	DROP — perma-free killed Oct 2024
4	Railway	$5 one-time trial credit (expires 30 days); then $1/mo Free plan	NO for trial	usage-based	YES	YES (trial)	EVALUATE — trial-only, not durable
5	Replit	Free: 512 MB–1 GB RAM, ~1 GB storage, shared CPU; no custom domains on free	NO	Sleep ~5 min idle; always-on requires paid	NO on free	restricted on free	EVALUATE — no custom domain = blocker for prod
6	Cyclic.sh	—	—	SHUT DOWN May 31 2024	—	—	DROP (dead)
7	Glitch	—	—	HOSTING DISCONTINUED Jul 8 2025 (IDE only)	—	—	DROP (dead)

How the family uses this category today

We mostly avoid persistent web services. The pattern is:

Static + Pages Functions for 95% of needs (covered in static-sites.md + serverless-functions.md)
Render Free for the 1-2 services that genuinely need a long-running process (e.g., a cron poller, a Discord bot, a webhook receiver that can’t fit in Workers’ 10 ms CPU budget)
Koyeb Free as the second slot — 1 Nano always-on without the 15-min sleep

If we cross 2 services, the next slot goes to a Cloudflare Workers Cron Trigger or a GitHub Actions scheduled workflow before paying for a third Render instance.

Quirks per provider

Render Free sleep. 15-min idle → instance spins down; first request after sleep takes 30–60 s to wake. Acceptable for Discord bots, webhook receivers, cron pollers. Not acceptable for anything user-facing without a wake-up cron.
Render 2026-04-23 plan reshuffle. Free tier survived but with tighter caps (25 services total across all tiers). Static bandwidth was the big cut, not the web service tier.
Koyeb anti-fraud. Their signup may ask for a card if their humanity check is uncertain (Tor exit nodes, residential VPNs, freshly-created GitHub accounts). Use a clean residential IP + a GitHub account >6 months old to bypass.
Fly.io history. Perma-free was 3 small VMs for years. Killed in Oct 2024 amid abuse cleanup. Card now required after the 2 VM-hour / 7-day trial. Was a beloved free option; gone.
Railway trial. $5 expires in 30 days, then Free plan needs $1/mo to stay alive. Not card-required for trial, but durable use needs the card.
Replit no-custom-domain on free. Was free’s biggest perk; killed circa 2023. Without custom domains, prod use isn’t viable. Educational sandbox only.
Cyclic.sh announced shutdown Apr 2024, off May 31 2024. Don’t link to it anywhere.
Glitch hosting stopped Jul 8 2025. IDE remnants may persist but no app hosting.

Recommendation for the family

Slot 1 (Render Free): Discord bot / webhook receiver / scheduled poller that needs to be always-listening.
Slot 2 (Koyeb Free): A second always-on tiny service (e.g., metrics scrape relay).
Slot 3 onwards: Re-architect as Cloudflare Workers Cron Trigger OR GitHub Actions scheduled workflow — both are free, both are durable. Don’t pay for Render slot #3.

Sources

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