5 free hosting platforms for developers: what you really get

The project is done. It works locally.

Now it has to go live.

A few years ago that meant renting a server, configuring it, installing an SSL certificate and uploading files by hand. Today you connect a repository: on every push the platform builds the site and distributes it across a network of servers around the world.

Many of these platforms have a free plan. Free does not mean unlimited, though: each one has thresholds, usage rules and a specific behavior when those thresholds are crossed.

This guide covers 5 platforms and, for each one, what the free plan offers and what to watch out for.

How a modern deployment works

All five platforms follow roughly the same flow:

git push
  ↓
Build (npm run build)
  ↓
Static files and functions
  ↓
Global CDN
  ↓
Live site with HTTPS

The difference is what happens in between: which frameworks are supported, whether you can run server-side code, how much traffic is included and what happens when you exceed it.

Before starting, it helps to separate two kinds of projects:

• Static site: HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images, ready to serve. The server just delivers them.
• Web app with server-side code: server rendering, APIs, serverless functions. You need a platform that runs code, not just one that delivers files.

01. Vercel

Vercel is the company that created and maintains Next.js, and it shows: Next.js support is the most complete, but it also works well with Astro, SvelteKit, Nuxt and many other frameworks.

What the Hobby plan includes

The free plan is called Hobby. Each month it includes, among other things:

• 100 GB of Fast Data Transfer, the traffic sent to visitors;
• 1 million CDN requests;
• 1 million function invocations, with 4 hours of active CPU;
• 5,000 image transformations;
• up to 100 deployments per day and 200 projects.

Every push to a branch creates a preview with its own URL: handy for showing a change before it goes live.

What to watch out for

The Hobby plan is limited to personal, non-commercial use. A site for a client or for a business that sells something requires the Pro plan.

Going over the limits does not produce an invoice: in most cases the affected feature is blocked and becomes available again after 30 days.

02. Netlify

Netlify made Git-connected deployment popular for static sites. Today it also supports full-stack frameworks, serverless functions and forms handled without writing a backend.

What the Free plan includes

Since September 2025 Netlify has used a credit system. The Free plan includes 300 credits per month, and every resource spends part of them:

• each production deploy costs 15 credits;
• preview and branch deploys are free;
• bandwidth, requests, compute time and form submissions spend credits in proportion to usage;
• custom domain and SSL are included.

300 credits per month
  ↓
deploys + bandwidth + requests + compute
  ↓
Credits gone → projects paused

The math is simple: 20 production deploys alone use up a full month of credits.

What to watch out for

When credits run out on the Free plan, every project on the team is paused: no traffic, no deploys, and visitors see a site unavailable message. Projects come back when credits refresh at the start of the next cycle, or when you move to a paid plan, since the Free plan cannot buy extra credits.

The practical advice: test changes on preview deploys, which cost nothing, and batch them instead of shipping every small fix to production.

Accounts created before the change can stay on their legacy plan with no action required.

03. Cloudflare Pages

Cloudflare runs one of the largest networks in the world, and Pages sits directly on top of it. Alongside hosting you get DNS, DDoS protection and the option to add server-side logic with Pages Functions, built on Workers.

What the Free plan includes

• free, unlimited requests to static files;
• 500 builds per month, one at a time, each capped at 20 minutes;
• up to 20,000 files per site, each up to 25 MiB;
• 100 custom domains per project.

What to watch out for

Static traffic is unlimited, server-side code is not. Requests that go through Functions count toward the Workers Free quota: 100,000 per day, with at most 10 milliseconds of CPU per invocation.

Request
  ↓
Static file? → served free, no limit
  ↓
Function?    → counts toward Workers quota (100,000 per day)

If the project has a lot of server-side logic, also look at Workers with static assets: according to Cloudflare's documentation it offers a broader set of features than Pages, such as Durable Objects and Cron Triggers.

04. GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages turns a repository into a website. No extra account, no outside service: code and site live in the same place.

What it includes

• published sites up to 1 GB;
• a soft limit of 100 GB of bandwidth per month;
• a soft limit of 10 builds per hour, which does not apply if you publish with a GitHub Actions workflow;
• custom domain with HTTPS.

It is the natural choice for documentation, portfolios, static blogs and open source project pages.

What to watch out for

GitHub Pages only serves static files: no server-side code. If the project needs APIs or server rendering, you need another service.

GitHub also states that Pages is not meant as free hosting for an online business, an e-commerce site or software sold as a subscription, and that it should not be used for sensitive transactions such as sending passwords or card numbers.

05. Firebase Hosting

Firebase is Google's platform for building apps, and Hosting is the part that publishes the frontend. The advantage is having authentication, database and hosting in the same project.

What the Spark plan includes

The free plan is called Spark, and for Hosting it includes:

• 10 GB of storage;
• 360 MB per day of data transfer;
• custom domain and SSL;
• multiple sites in the same project.

What to watch out for

The traffic limit is daily: 360 MB a day adds up to about 10 GB a month, but a spike concentrated in a single day is enough to hit it.

Server-side code is not included. Cloud Functions and App Hosting, Firebase's option for server-rendered frameworks such as Next.js, require the Blaze plan: pay as you go, with a billing account attached, although it includes some no-cost usage.

Free does not mean without rules

All five platforms can put a site online in minutes. What sets them apart comes down to three questions.

Can you run server-side code?

• Vercel and Netlify: yes, within the plan limits.
• Cloudflare Pages: yes, within the daily Workers quota.
• GitHub Pages: no, static files only.
• Firebase Hosting: only on the Blaze plan.

Can you use it for a commercial project?

Vercel Hobby rules it out, and GitHub Pages advises against it for online businesses and paid services. For the other platforms, read the plan terms before publishing a client's site.

What happens when you cross a threshold?

On Vercel the feature is blocked for up to 30 days. On Netlify every project on the team is paused until credits refresh. Knowing this in advance beats finding out the day your site takes off.

Personal static site      → GitHub Pages or Cloudflare Pages
Personal Next.js web app  → Vercel
Heavy static traffic      → Cloudflare Pages
Firebase auth and data    → Firebase Hosting
Forms without a backend   → Netlify
Client project            → paid plan or verified terms

Checklist before choosing

Before connecting the repository, answer these five questions:

• Is the project static, or does it need server-side code?
• Is it personal or commercial, and does the free plan allow it?
• How much traffic and how many production deploys do you expect each month?
• What happens when you cross a threshold: block, pause or invoice?
• Are a custom domain and HTTPS included?

Once the answers are clear, the platform usually picks itself.

Pick the platform, then ship

There is no single best platform. There is the one that fits the project in front of you: a static portfolio, a server-rendered web app and a client's website have different needs and deserve different choices.

The most important step is still another one: shipping. A live project, however small, collects visits, real errors and feedback. A project sitting on your machine teaches none of that.

Sources

• Vercel, Hobby Plan
• Netlify, Pricing
• Netlify, Introducing credit-based plans
• Netlify, Resume paused projects
• Cloudflare Pages, Limits
• Cloudflare Pages, Functions pricing
• Cloudflare Workers, Pricing
• Cloudflare Workers, Migrate from Pages
• GitHub Docs, GitHub Pages limits
• Firebase, Pricing