Free hosting — web services (Render, Fly, Railway, Koyeb, Replit, Cyclic, Glitch)
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
- Render Free tier 2026 guide
- Render — platforms with a real free tier 2026
- Render new workspace plans
- Fly.io pricing + 2026 post-cut writeup
- Railway free trial docs
- Koyeb pricing FAQ
- Koyeb anti-fraud signup blog
- Replit limitations 2026
- Cyclic shutdown announcement
- Glitch shutdown — talk.tiddlywiki.org