Build side projects on completely free tiers. Turso, Render, Firebase Auth, BetterStack, GitHub Actions — verified limits, cost at scale, stability ratings.
Build your side project without worrying about costs. Every service here stays free for hobby use.
Side projects need services that stay free forever — not free trials that expire. This stack uses genuinely free tiers with no credit card required. Optimized for solo developers who want to ship fast and keep costs at exactly $0 for as long as possible.
| Category | Service | Stability | Free | ~1K MAU | ~10K MAU | ~100K MAU |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Database | TursoEdge SQLite — 100 databases, 5 GB storage, 500M rows read/month, 10M rows written/month… | active | $0 | $0 | $29 | $29 |
| Hosting | RenderFree web services (512 MB RAM, less than 1 CPU), free PostgreSQL (256 MB RAM, 30-day… | at risk | $0 | $7 | $25 | $85 |
| Auth | Firebase AuthFull BaaS — Auth (50K MAU), Firestore (1 GiB storage, 50K reads/day), Cloud Functions (2M… | active | $0 | $0 | $0 | $5 |
| Monitoring | BetterStack10 uptime monitors, 3 GB logs (3-day retention), 100K exceptions/mo, 5K session replays… | active | $0 | $0 | $25 | $85 |
| Brevo300 emails/day, unlimited contacts (fair use policy), marketing automation, segmentation… | active | $0 | $0 | $25 | $65 | |
| CI/CD | GitHub ActionsFree CI/CD for public repos (unlimited minutes). Private repos: 2,000 min/mo… | active | $0 | $0 | $4 | $21 |
| Total | $0/mo | $7/mo | $108/mo | $290/mo |
Most generous free database tier. 5 GB storage, edge SQLite, no inactivity pausing.
Edge SQLite — 100 databases, 5 GB storage, 500M rows read/month, 10M rows written/month free
Free web services with auto-deploy from GitHub. Spins down after inactivity but restarts on request.
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…
Completely free auth up to 50K MAU. No platform lock-in required — use just the auth.
Full BaaS — Auth (50K MAU), Firestore (1 GiB storage, 50K reads/day), Cloud Functions (2M invocations/month), Hosting, Analytics, Crashlytics all free
Free uptime monitoring with 10 monitors and status pages. Know when your side project goes down.
10 uptime monitors, 3 GB logs (3-day retention), 100K exceptions/mo, 5K session replays, 30 GB metrics, 1 status page, 1 responder
300 emails/day free — more than enough for side project transactional email.
300 emails/day, unlimited contacts (fair use policy), marketing automation, segmentation, landing pages. Formerly Sendinblue
Already where your code lives. Free tier covers any side project CI needs.
Free CI/CD for public repos (unlimited minutes). Private repos: 2,000 min/mo GitHub-hosted runners, 500 MB artifact storage, 10 GB cache/repo…
Want to customize this stack? Here are smart swaps that can save money at scale:
Save $85/mo at 100K users — if your project is static/Jamstack, Cloudflare Pages is free at any scale
Get 10 GiB storage free — better for side projects that grow unexpectedly
Use plan_stack to get AI-powered stack recommendations tailored to your specific use case.
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