Compare Netlify and Render free tiers side by side. Pricing, limits, change history, and risk assessment for developers.

Netlify vs Render

Side-by-side free tier comparison. Data verified through 2026-08-26.

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Verdict

Both Netlify and Render offer free tiers. Netlify provides "Free" while Render offers "Hobby".

Netlify caution discovered 2026-09-07 restructured

CategoryCloud Hosting
TierFree
Verified2026-08-26
Changes5 recorded
Superseded: As of 2026-09-07, netlify.com/pricing reads: The Free plan offers 300 credit limit / month, including production deploys (15 credits each), compute (10 credits per GB-hour), bandwidth (20 credits per GB), and web requests (2 credits per 10k requests). Additional credits can be purchased. We are not publishing our stored Netlify terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-07, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

Render caution discovered 2026-09-02 restructured

CategoryCloud Hosting
TierHobby
Verified2026-08-15
Changes2 recorded
Free web services (512 MB RAM, less than 1 CPU), free PostgreSQL (256 MB RAM, 30-day expiry), free Redis (25 MB). 5 GB bandwidth/month included then $0.15/GB, 500 build minutes/month. Up to 25 services, 2 environments per project. Auto-deploy from Git

Pricing Change History

Netlify

restructured discovered 2026-09-07 · effective date unknown medium impact
The free tier now offers 300 credits/month.
Source ↗
model change effective 2026-04-17 medium impact
Netlify credits-based pricing updated: bandwidth now 20 credits/GB (was 10), compute now 10 credits/GB-hour (was 5), web requests 2 credits/10K (new). Same 300 credits/month allocation but each credit buys less bandwidth and compute.
Source ↗
increased effective 2026-04-14 medium impact
Form submissions are now free across all Credit plans (including the Credit Free tier) — previously each form submission cost 1 credit. Credit Pro also gained unlimited team seats (was $20/seat per Git contributor), which effectively removes the prior CMS/Identity 'every committer becomes a $19 Pro seat' gotcha for free-tier users who ever upgrade.
Source ↗
restricted effective 2026-03-01 high impact
No longer in force (2026-04-14). Every repo committer is now charged as a full Pro seat ($19/mo) when using Netlify CMS or Identity with a private repo. Previously only users who logged into the Netlify dashboard counted as seats Reversed 2026-04-14: Netlify's pricing page now states that as of April 14th, credit-based Pro plans no longer charge for any seat. The per-committer charge described here is no longer in force.
Source ↗
restructured effective 2025-09-04 medium impact
Restructured to credit-based pricing; sites pause on credit exhaustion
Source ↗

Render

restructured discovered 2026-09-02 · effective date unknown high impact
The free tier now includes compute options with varying RAM and CPU, and the limits for PostgreSQL and Key Value stores have been updated. Bandwidth for the Hobby tier is now 5GB included per month, then $0.15 per GB.
Source ↗
reduced effective 2025-09-01 low impact
Free web services now spin down after 15 minutes of inactivity (previously 30 minutes). Cold starts take 30-60 seconds. Free tier remains but with faster sleep times
Source ↗

Watch Both Vendors for Pricing Changes

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