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 pulled from our index of 1,547+ verified 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 554 real pricing changes. The limits on this page were read from vendor pricing pages between 2026-07-23 and 2026-09-07.
$0/month
Total estimated monthly cost for a personal site or small project
$0 covers the 7 of 9 picks whose free tier our own badge still reads as active. It does not cover Cloudflare (unrated — restricted offer), Sanity (at risk).
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
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.
Unlimited bandwidth, global CDN across 300+ locations, DDoS protection, SSL, and caching — all free. No bandwidth caps, no request limits. The industry default for frontend delivery.
Up to $250K in Cloudflare credits across 4 tiers: Bootstrapped ($5K), Up-and-Coming ($25K), Seed-Funded ($100K), High Growth ($250K). Covers Workers, R2, Workers AI, Stream, Durable Objects, and more. Credits expire…
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
When you'll outgrow it: When you exceed 25 credits/month or need video streaming. imgix offers 1K master images free for open source. TinyPNG API has 500 free compressions/month. Cloudflare Images starts at $5/month for 100K images stored.
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
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.
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…
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.
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.
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 554 deal changes across 1,547+ developer tools.
pricing restructuredNetlify: Restructured to credit-based pricing; sites pause on credit exhaustion Source ↗
restrictionNetlify: 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 ↗
new free tierCloudflare: Queues added to Workers free plan — message queuing now free Source ↗
pricing restructuredCloudflare Durable Objects: SQLite storage billing began for Durable Objects — previously free during beta Source ↗
pricing restructuredSentry: Switched from performance units to spans-based metrics for error and performance monitoring Source ↗
pricing restructuredVercel: Pro plan moved to credit-based model ($20/mo credit pool), Hobby plan metrics renamed and restructured — bandwidth→Fast Data Transfer, se... Source ↗
startup program expandedCloudflare Startup Program: Startup program revamped to 4 tiers with up to $250,000 in credits (previously lower). Tiers: Bootstrapped $5K, Up-and-Coming $25K, Seed-... Source ↗
pricing restructuredVercel: 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 removedTypeform: No free tier visible, paid from $28/month We hold no source for this record, so it does not set Typeform's rating.
pricing model changeNetlify: Netlify credits-based pricing updated: bandwidth now 20 credits/GB (was 10), compute now 10 credits/GB-hour (was 5), web requests 2 credi... Source ↗
limits increasedNetlify: Form submissions are now free across all Credit plans (including the Credit Free tier) — previously each form submission cost 1 credit. C... Source ↗
limits reducedPenpot: The free tier now has a limit of 8 team members and 10GB of storage. Source ↗
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:
Build minutes (Cloudflare Pages 500/month) — frequent deploys and large sites burn through builds fast
CMS content (Sanity 100K API requests) — high-traffic content sites with many pages and API calls
Error volume (Sentry 5K/month) — production apps with noisy error reporting
Image transformations (Cloudinary 25 credits) — media-heavy sites with many image variants
The good news: bandwidth is rarely the bottleneck. Cloudflare Pages and Cloudflare CDN offer unlimited bandwidth on free tiers. 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 1,547+ developer deals.
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Get personalized frontend stack recommendations from your AI assistant. Compare free tiers, check limits, and plan your Jamstack infrastructure — directly in your editor.
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