Build and ship frontend projects on free tiers. 10 categories — hosting, CDN, CMS, forms, analytics, error tracking, image optimization, and more. Exact limits, scaling guidance.

AgentDeals › Alternatives › Free Frontend Stack

The Complete Free Frontend Stack

Published 2026-03-25 · Not yet reviewed

Everything you need to build, deploy, and ship frontend projects — without spending a dollar. This guide recommends the best free tier for each layer of a frontend/Jamstack stack — 10 categories from static hosting to feature flags — with exact limits for each. Figures in the tables below come from our records for 1,574 developer tools.

Designed for solo developers, freelancers, and small teams building websites, web apps, and Jamstack projects. Each recommendation includes alternatives, a "when you'll outgrow it" guide, and stability notes based on our tracking of 476 real pricing changes. The limits on this page were read from vendor pricing pages between 2026-07-05 and 2026-09-25.

$0/month
Total estimated monthly cost for a personal site or small project
$0 covers the 5 of 9 picks whose free tier our own badge still reads as active. It does not cover Cloudflare Pages (unrated — change not reconciled), Cloudflare DNS (unrated — change refused), Sanity (at risk), PostHog (unrated — change refused).

Stack Overview

Category Recommended Key Limit Stability
🌐 Static & Edge Hosting Cloudflare Pages Up to 100 sites (soft limit), unlimited bandwidth, 500 builds/month, 100 custom domains per project unrated — change not reconciled
⚡ CDN & Edge Network Cloudflare DNS Free authoritative DNS hosting — unlimited zones and queries, DDoS protection, free SSL/TLS. Records-per-zone… unrated — change refused
📝 Headless CMS Sanity Structured content platform — Free: $0 forever. Includes: Up to 20 user seats, 2 permission roles, 2 datasets… at risk
📋 Forms & User Input Tally Unlimited forms, unlimited submissions, collect payments, file uploads, e-signatures, conditional logic… active
📊 Frontend Analytics PostHog Product analytics — 1M events/month, 5K session replays, 1M feature flag requests, 100K error events, A/B… unrated — change refused
🐛 Error & Performance Monitoring Sentry Developer tier: 1 user, 5K errors/month, 5M spans/month, 50 session replays, 5GB application logs, 1GB… active
🖼️ Image Optimization & Media Cloudinary Media management — 25 credits/month (1 credit = 1 GB storage OR 1 GB bandwidth OR 1K transformations), up to… active
✉️ Email & Newsletters Resend Developer-first email API — 3K emails/month free (100/day cap), 3 domains, 1K marketing contacts/month, 5 AI… active
🎨 Design & Prototyping Figma Collaborative design tool — free Starter plan with unlimited personal drafts, unlimited viewers/commenters… active
🚩 Feature Flags & A/B Testing PostHog Product analytics — 1M events/month, 5K session replays, 1M feature flag requests, 100K error events, A/B… unrated — change refused

🌐 Static & Edge Hosting

Recommended Cloudflare Pages Free unrated — change not reconciled

Unlimited bandwidth, 500 builds/month, 1 build at a time. Automatic edge deployment to 300+ locations. Git integration, preview deploys, and serverless Functions included. The most generous free hosting for static and Jamstack sites.

Up to 100 sites (soft limit), unlimited bandwidth, 500 builds/month, 100 custom domains per project

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

Also consider:

Vercel Hobby active Netlify Free at risk GitHub Pages Free unrated — page states no price
When you'll outgrow it: When you need more than 500 builds/month or concurrent builds. Vercel offers 100 GB bandwidth with serverless functions. Netlify gives 100 GB bandwidth and 300 build minutes. GitHub Pages is unlimited bandwidth for public repos but static-only.
Full comparison guide →

⚡ CDN & Edge Network

Recommended Cloudflare DNS Free unrated — change refused

Cloudflare's Free plan costs $0 and includes a CDN, DDoS protection and a Universal SSL certificate. Cloudflare's network is in more than 300 cities. The CDN caches and serves web pages; video and other large files need a paid Cloudflare service, and Cloudflare may limit a site that serves them without one.

Free authoritative DNS hosting — unlimited zones and queries, DDoS protection, free SSL/TLS. Records-per-zone cap is 200 for zones created on or after 2024-09-01; zones created before that date retain the legacy…

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

Also consider:

Fastly Free Developer active
When you'll outgrow it: When you need advanced features like image optimization, video delivery, or custom caching rules beyond the free tier. Fastly offers free CDN for open-source projects. BunnyCDN starts at $0.01/GB with a 14-day trial.
Full comparison guide →

📝 Headless CMS

Recommended Sanity Free at risk

Free Spark plan: 100K API requests/month, 500K API CDN requests, 10 GB bandwidth, 5 GB assets. Real-time collaborative editing, GROQ query language, and a customizable Studio. Generous enough for most content sites.

Structured content platform — Free: $0 forever. Includes: Up to 20 user seats, 2 permission roles, 2 datasets (public only), Unlimited content types and locales, Content Agent, Agent Context, Compute and Agent Actions…

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

Also consider:

Strapi Free OSS unrated — page states no price Contentful Free unrated — page unreadable Hygraph Hobby active
When you'll outgrow it: When you exceed 100K API requests/month or need more than 3 non-admin users. Strapi is self-hosted and completely free (unlimited everything). Contentful offers 25K records and 2M API calls. Hygraph gives 1M API operations/month on its free plan.

📋 Forms & User Input

Recommended Tally Free active

Unlimited forms, unlimited submissions, no branding on the free tier. Conditional logic, file uploads, payment collection, and integrations. The most generous free form builder — no per-submission caps.

Unlimited forms, unlimited submissions, collect payments, file uploads, e-signatures, conditional logic, calculations, 45+ languages. Integrations with Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, Zapier, Make

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

Also consider:

Formspree Free active
When you'll outgrow it: When you need custom domains, team collaboration, or advanced integrations beyond webhooks. Formspree offers 50 submissions/month with API access. Typeform gives 10 responses/month with beautiful conversational forms.

📊 Frontend Analytics

Recommended PostHog Free unrated — change refused

1 million events/month free, with product analytics, session replay (5K recordings), feature flags, A/B testing, and surveys. The most complete analytics platform on a free tier — replaces 3-4 separate tools.

Product analytics — 1M events/month, 5K session replays, 1M feature flag requests, 100K error events, A/B testing. No credit card required

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

Also consider:

Umami Free OSS unrated — page states no price Google Analytics Free unrated — page states no price
When you'll outgrow it: When you exceed 1M events/month or need more than 5K session replays. Plausible CE is self-hosted and unlimited. Umami is another self-hosted option with a simpler dashboard. Google Analytics is free at any scale but privacy-invasive.
Full comparison guide →

🐛 Error & Performance Monitoring

Recommended Sentry Developer active

Developer tier: 5K errors/month, 5M spans/month, 50 session replays, 5 GB attachments. Real-time error tracking with stack traces, source maps, breadcrumbs, and release tracking. 1 user free.

Developer tier: 1 user, 5K errors/month, 5M spans/month, 50 session replays, 5GB application logs, 1GB attachments

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

Also consider:

Highlight.io Free OSS unrated — page states no price Bugsnag Free active

No longer a free-tier pick: LogRocket — free tier removed.

When you'll outgrow it: When you exceed 5K errors/month or need more than 1 user. Highlight.io offers 500 sessions + 1K errors + 1M logs bundled.
Full comparison guide →

🖼️ Image Optimization & Media

Recommended Cloudinary Free active

25 credits/month (roughly 25K transformations or 25 GB managed storage). On-the-fly image and video transformations, responsive delivery, lazy loading, and format optimization. The standard for frontend media delivery.

Media management — 25 credits/month (1 credit = 1 GB storage OR 1 GB bandwidth OR 1K transformations), up to 3 users

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

No longer a free-tier pick: imgix — free tier removed.

When you'll outgrow it: When you exceed 25 credits/month or need video streaming. TinyPNG API has 500 free compressions/month. Cloudflare Images starts at $5/month for 100K images stored.

✉️ Email & Newsletters

Recommended Resend Free active

3,000 emails/month, 100 emails/day on the free tier. Modern developer-first email API with React Email support, deliverability insights, and simple SDK. Perfect for transactional emails and small newsletters.

Developer-first email API — 3K emails/month free (100/day cap), 3 domains, 1K marketing contacts/month, 5 AI credits, 30-day data retention

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

Also consider:

Buttondown Free unrated — page states no price Mailchimp Free unrated — change not reconciled Brevo Free unrated — change not reconciled
When you'll outgrow it: When you exceed 3K emails/month or need dedicated IP. Buttondown offers 100 subscribers free for newsletters specifically. Mailchimp gives 500 contacts with marketing automation. Brevo offers 300 emails/day with no subscriber limits.
Full comparison guide →

🎨 Design & Prototyping

Recommended Figma Starter active

Free for up to 3 Figma files and 3 FigJam files. Real-time collaboration, components, auto-layout, Dev Mode preview. The industry standard for UI design and handoff — most component libraries ship Figma files.

Collaborative design tool — free Starter plan with unlimited personal drafts, unlimited viewers/commenters, unlimited cloud storage, 30-day version history, 150 AI credits/day (500/mo). Team projects limited to 3 Figma…

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

Also consider:

Penpot Free at risk Canva Free stale
When you'll outgrow it: When you need more than 3 active files or team libraries. Penpot is open-source with unlimited files — self-hosted or free cloud. Canva offers free design with templates. Framer provides free website publishing with its design tool.
Full comparison guide →

🚩 Feature Flags & A/B Testing

Recommended PostHog Free unrated — change refused

1 million API requests/month for feature flags, plus built-in A/B testing and multivariate experiments. No separate tool needed — same platform as your analytics. Includes targeting by user properties, percentages, and cohorts.

Product analytics — 1M events/month, 5K session replays, 1M feature flag requests, 100K error events, A/B testing. No credit card required

Full profile Alternatives Pricing ↗

Also consider:

Flagsmith Free active LaunchDarkly Developer active
When you'll outgrow it: When you exceed 1M feature flag requests/month or need advanced targeting. Flagsmith offers 50K requests/month with a self-hosted option. Unleash is open-source for self-hosting. LaunchDarkly's free Developer tier supports 1K MAU.

Stability Notes

Recent pricing changes affecting vendors in this stack. Based on our tracking of 476 deal changes across 1,574+ developer tools.

pricing restructured Netlify: Restructured to credit-based pricing; sites pause on credit exhaustion Source ↗
restriction Netlify: 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 ... Source ↗
pricing restructured Sentry: Switched from performance units to spans-based metrics for error and performance monitoring Source ↗
pricing restructured Vercel: Pro plan moved to credit-based model ($20/mo credit pool), Hobby plan metrics renamed and restructured — bandwidth→Fast Data Transfer, se... Source ↗
pricing restructured Vercel: New Pro projects now default to Turbo build machines (30 vCPUs, 60GB memory) at $0.126/minute — 9x more expensive than Standard machines ... Source ↗
free tier removed imgix: Imgix replaced its self-service Free plan ($0, up to 1,000 origin images) with a 30-day trial of 100 credits when it moved to credit-base... Source ↗
pricing model change Netlify: Netlify changed its credit rates: bandwidth went from 10 to 20 credits per GB and compute from 5 to 10 credits per GB-hour, while web req... Source ↗
limits increased Netlify: Form submissions are now free across all Credit plans (including the Credit Free tier) — previously each form submission cost 1 credit. C... Source ↗
limits reduced Penpot: The free tier now has a limit of 8 team members and 10GB of storage. Source ↗
limits reduced Sanity: The free tier now includes 2 datasets (public only). Previously 10K documents, 1M CDN requests/month, 100 GB assets, and 20 users. The fr... Source ↗
free tier removed LogRocket: LogRocket removed its Free plan ("Free forever", $0 a month, 1,000 sessions a month) between captures of its pricing page on 2026-06-08 a... Source ↗
limits increased Resend: The free tier now has a limit of 3,000 emails/month (100/day) and includes 3 domains. Previously 3K emails/month (100/day) and 1 domain. ... Source ↗

View all 476 pricing changes →

Open-Source Self-Hosted Alternatives

For each category, there's an open-source option you can run on your own hardware — no limits, no vendor lock-in, complete control over your stack.

Category Tool Details
Hosting Hugo / Astro Static site generators — build locally, deploy anywhere. Hugo is the fastest SSG; Astro supports React/Vue/Svelte islands.
CDN Caddy + Varnish Self-hosted reverse proxy with automatic HTTPS (Caddy) and HTTP cache (Varnish). Full CDN behavior on your own infrastructure.
CMS Strapi Open-source headless CMS. Self-hosted, unlimited content types and entries. REST and GraphQL APIs. Full admin panel.
Forms Formio Open-source form builder with drag-and-drop UI, conditional logic, and submissions management. Self-hosted, unlimited forms.
Analytics Plausible CE / Umami Privacy-first self-hosted analytics. No cookies, GDPR-compliant, lightweight script. Unlimited pageviews and sites.
Error Tracking Sentry (self-hosted) Full Sentry platform self-hosted. Unlimited errors, users, and projects. Docker Compose deployment.
Images imgproxy On-the-fly image processing server. Resize, crop, convert formats. Tiny memory footprint, fast Go implementation.
Design Penpot Open-source design and prototyping platform. Real-time collaboration, SVG-native, no file limits. Self-hosted or free cloud.

When You'll Outgrow Free Tiers

Most personal sites, portfolios, and small projects can run their entire frontend stack on free tiers indefinitely. Here's what typically hits limits first:

  1. Build minutes (Cloudflare Pages 500/month) — frequent deploys and large sites burn through builds fast
  2. CMS content (Sanity 100K API requests) — high-traffic content sites with many pages and API calls
  3. Analytics events (PostHog 1M/month) — high-traffic sites with detailed event tracking
  4. Error volume (Sentry 5K/month) — production apps with noisy error reporting
  5. Image transformations (Cloudinary 25 credits) — media-heavy sites with many image variants

The good news: bandwidth is rarely the bottleneck. Cloudflare's Free plan lists no bandwidth or request quota, and Cloudflare Pages' docs say requests to static assets are free and unlimited on every plan. Video and other large files need a paid Cloudflare service to be served through the CDN. The self-hosted alternatives above have no limits at all.

Need backend infrastructure too? See our Free Startup Stack for databases, auth, and backend hosting. Building DevOps? Check the Free DevOps Stack. Or search our full index of 1,574+ developer deals.

More Alternatives Guides

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