Free hosting service for web apps and websites [2023]

Electroica
Electroica Blog
Published in
8 min readAug 29, 2023

If you are looking for a server to host your web application or a website on the internet with a public URL without paying a dime for it you have come to the right place.

In this article, I have listed a list of services/ websites which provide free hosting plans.

Free hosting plans are best if you are a student who has just made a cool website and wants to show it to the world but doesn’t want to pay a hefty amount to buy a server and manage it.

Free hosting can also help you to learn how hosting works and how a website is deployed from development to production.

Without further ado, here are the Free hosting services, choose any based on your requirements.

  1. Netlify
  2. Vercel
  3. Codeberg pages
  4. GitHub pages
  5. Firebase
  6. Render
  7. Deno Deploy
  8. Cyclic
  9. Digital Ocean App platform
  10. Bonus: Digital Ocean droplet $200 credit

Netlify

Netlify is a hosting service that provides a platform to build, deploy, and manage static websites and web applications. It is easy to use, reliable, and scalable. Netlify offers a free plan that is great for personal projects, and paid plans that are more affordable than most other hosting services. Netlify also offers a number of features that make it a great choice for hosting static websites and web applications, such as continuous deployment, automatic build previews, HTTPS, CDN, form handling, SEO, and analytics. Get Started with Netlify by following the short article on their documentation.

Vercel

Vercel is a hosting service for frontend web applications. It offers a number of features that make it a great choice for developers, such as automatic deployments, edge functions, analytics, CLI, and API. Vercel is easy to use, reliable, and scalable. It is a great option for hosting frontend web applications.

Here are some of the key features of Vercel hosting service:

  • Automatic deployments: Vercel automatically deploys your changes to production as soon as you make them.
  • Edge functions: Vercel allows you to run serverless code on the edge, which can improve the performance of your application.
  • Analytics: Vercel provides analytics data so you can track how people are using your application.
  • CLI: Vercel has a command-line interface (CLI) that you can use to manage your application.
  • API: Vercel has an API that you can use to programmatically interact with your application.

Learn how to host your first Vercel app by following along their extensively written documentation.

Cyclic

Cyclic.sh is a cloud-based hosting service for Node.js applications. It is a fully managed platform that takes care of all the infrastructure and operational overhead, so you can focus on building your application.

Cyclic.sh offers a number of features that make it a good choice for Node.js developers, including:

  • Automatic deployments: Cyclic.sh will automatically deploy your application to production whenever you make a change to your code.
  • Scalability: Cyclic.sh can scale your application to meet the needs of your traffic.
  • Security: Cyclic.sh uses HTTPS/TLS to secure your application.
  • Monitoring: Cyclic.sh provides monitoring and alerts so you can keep an eye on your application’s health.
  • Cost-effectiveness: Cyclic.sh is a cost-effective way to host your Node.js applications.

Cyclic.sh offers a free tier that allows you to host one application with up to 1024 MB of RAM and 100 API requests per month. Paid plans start at $3 per month and offer more resources and features.

Codeberg

Codeberg is a democratic community-driven, non-profit software development platform operated by Codeberg e.V. and centered around Codeberg.org, a Forgejo-based software forge. It is a free and open-source alternative to GitHub. Codeberg offers a number of features that are similar to GitHub, such as issue tracking, pull requests, and code review. However, Codeberg also has some unique features, such as a focus on privacy and sustainability.

It is similar to GitHub pages. You can learn how to host your website from there documentation.

https://codeberg.page/

Github Pages

GitHub Pages is a free service that allows you to host a static website on GitHub. Static websites are websites that are built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and they do not require a server to be hosted. This makes GitHub Pages a great option for hosting personal websites, blogs, and portfolios.

You can learn how to deploy your website on GitHub pages from their Github Getstarted guide which is like an easy-to-follow tutorial.

A very useful feature of GitHub pages is you can add your own custom domain too.

https://pages.github.com/

Firebase

Firebase Hosting is a fully-managed hosting service that allows you to deploy your static and dynamic content to a global CDN. It is a part of the Firebase suite of cloud services, which also includes Realtime Database, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Firestore. Firebase Hosting is a great option for hosting static and dynamic content. It is easy to use, reliable, and scalable. If you are looking for a hosting service that can help you deploy your websites quickly and easily, Firebase Hosting is a great option.

Here’s a tutorial that might help you to deploy your first app on Firebase.

Render

Render is a fully-managed cloud platform where you can host static sites, backend APIs, databases, cron jobs, and all your other apps in one place. It is a relatively new hosting service, but it has quickly gained popularity due to its ease of use, reliability, and scalability. Render is a great option for hosting static sites and web applications. It is easy to use, reliable, and scalable. If you are looking for a hosting service that can help you deploy your websites quickly and easily, Render is a great option.

https://render.com/?ref=blog.electroica.com

Deno Deploy

Deno Deploy is a serverless hosting service for Deno applications. It is a fully managed platform that takes care of all the infrastructure and operational overhead, so you can focus on building your application.

Deno Deploy is based on the Deno Subhosting architecture, which is a stateless, just-in-time execution model. This means that Deno Deploy only spins up an isolate when it receives a request, and then it tears it down after the request is finished. This makes Deno Deploy very efficient and scalable.

Deno Deploy is a great choice for developers who want to deploy Deno applications without having to worry about the infrastructure. It is also a good option for developers who want to build scalable and efficient applications.

Get started with deno deploy

Digital Ocean App platform

DigitalOcean App Platform is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering that allows developers to publish code directly to DigitalOcean servers without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. It offers a variety of features.

The App Platform is free to use for building and deploying static sites. For dynamic apps, there are three pricing tiers: Starter, Basic, and Professional.

You can host up to 3 static websites for free.

Cloudflare Pages

Similar to Github pages and Codeberg pages, you can host static websites on Cloudflare pages as well.

  • 1 build at a time
  • 500 builds per month
  • 100 custom domains per project
  • Unlimited sites
  • Unlimited static requests
  • Unlimited bandwidth

Start hosting on Cloudflare pages read the tutorial here.

Bonus: Digital Ocean

DigitalOcean is a cloud computing platform that offers Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions. It is a popular choice for developers and businesses looking for a reliable, scalable, and affordable cloud hosting solution.

DigitalOcean’s main product is Droplets, which are Linux-based virtual machines (VMs). Droplets can be customized to meet the specific needs of your application, and they can be scaled up or down as needed. DigitalOcean also offers a variety of other services, including:

  • Kubernetes: A managed Kubernetes service that makes it easy to deploy and manage containerized applications.
  • App Platform: A PaaS service that allows you to build, deploy, and scale web applications without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure.
  • Storage: A variety of storage options, including block storage, object storage, and managed databases.
  • Networking: A variety of networking options, including load balancing, firewalls, and VPNs.
  • CDN: A content delivery network that can help improve the performance of your website or application.

Although it is not free it gives you free $200 credits for the first 60 days to spent, which is more than enough to get your hand-on a server and decide if you want to continue with the droplet. You can upgrade or downgrade your droplet anytime.

Originally published at https://blog.electroica.com

--

--