Why caution:effective 2026-04-23 — Render replaced its workspace plans. Bandwidth for the Hobby tier went from 100 GB to 5 GB included per month, then $0.15 per GB, and Hobby workspaces are now capped at 25 services. New workspaces got the new plans on 2026-04-23 and existing workspaces moved on 2026-08-01. Free web services, Postgres and Key Value kept their specs, and free web services draw on the workspace's included bandwidth. Source ↗Full history ↓
A verdict here is not a fixed property of the vendor. A one-off pricing event demotes a vendor while its recorded date falls in the last 180 days and then lapses on its own, with nothing about the vendor having changed; a standing condition — a free tier withdrawn and not restored, a product retired — does not lapse with time. This one rests on a record effective 2026-04-23, so it lapses on 2026-10-21 unless we record something new first.
Subtypes in Cloud Hosting:container_app — you deploy an app or image and the platform keeps a process running for it. We read that on 2026-08-31 from https://render.com/docs, where it says: “Run your code in just a few clicks with Render. You decide what's possible, and we'll help bring it to life.”How we use this.
Limits, pricing history, and 28 alternatives. Verified October 2026. Last updated 2026-10-02.
Render's free tier offers Hobby plan, $0 a month plus compute… We rate it caution — one recorded pricing restructure, on 2026-04-23. Best for cloud hosting workloads — 28 alternatives available.
The day we last read the vendor's page, and the day we last confirmed the terms we publish.
Free Tier Details
Hobby plan, $0 a month plus compute. Free web services (512 MB RAM, 0.1 CPU) spin down after 15 minutes without traffic, with 750 free instance hours per workspace a month. One free Postgres database (256 MB RAM, 1 GB storage, 30-day expiry) and one free Key Value instance (25 MB, not continuously persisted to disk) per workspace. 5 GB bandwidth/month included then $0.15/GB; without a payment method on file, Render suspends Free services for the rest of the month instead. 500 build minutes/month. Up to 25 services, unlimited projects with 2 environments each. Pro is $25 a month plus compute.
We read that on 2026-10-02 from https://render.com/pricing, and our check recorded: the page names Render as "render" and states "$ 0" and "$ 25" and "$0" and "$25".
From render.com/pricing, read 2026-10-02:
Hobby For individuals building personal projects and prototypes. $ 0 /mo + compute Deploy for free
Render's docs say not to use Free instances for production applications. (From render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.)
Free web services cannot send outbound traffic on ports 25, 465, or 587, commonly used for SMTP. (From render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.)
A free Postgres database expires 30 days after creation and becomes inaccessible. You then have a 14-day grace period to upgrade to a paid plan before Render deletes it with all its data. (From render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.)
Free Postgres databases have no backups of any kind. (From render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.)
A free web service loses any changes to its local filesystem, such as uploaded images or a SQLite database, every time it redeploys, restarts or spins down, and it cannot attach a persistent disk. (From render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.)
When You'll Outgrow Render's Free Tier
At 1 GB storage, you'll need to upgrade.
At 5 GB bandwidth, you'll need to upgrade.
At that point, the 28 alternatives in Cloud Hosting are each listed with the free tier they offer, so you can compare what they give you against what you have outgrown.
Data correction - Render's plan change took effect on 2026-04-23 for new workspaces and on 2026-08-01 for existing ones, not on 2026-09-02, and it left the free web service, Postgres and Key Value terms as they were. Render's changelog dates it. Our re-read of 2026-09-02 recorded it as a change dated the day it read the page. Source ↗
Before: Recorded 2026-09-02 as pricing_restructured, dated 2026-09-02
After: pricing_restructured, dated 2026-04-23 from Render's changelog
Render replaced its workspace plans. Bandwidth for the Hobby tier went from 100 GB to 5 GB included per month, then $0.15 per GB, and Hobby workspaces are now capped at 25 services. New workspaces got the new plans on 2026-04-23 and existing workspaces moved on 2026-08-01. Free web services, Postgres and Key Value kept their specs, and free web services draw on the workspace's included bandwidth. Source ↗
Before: Hobby: "$ 0 USD per user/month plus compute costs", "Included bandwidth 100 GB / month", "Projects & environments 1 project with 2 environments" (pricing page, capture of 2026-04-22)
After: Hobby: "Deploy up to 25 services 5 GB of bandwidth included", "Bandwidth 5 GB per month then $0.15 per GB", "Projects and environments 1 project, 2 environments" (pricing page, capture of 2026-04-29)
Retracted — this record was our error (2026-09-28). Retracted 2026-09-28: no change. Render's free-tier docs already said it spins down a free web service after 15 minutes without inbound traffic, and that spinning up takes up to a minute, on 2024-11-23 and 2025-08-10. Source ↗
Recompute today's order yourself. The order above is a permutation seeded only on the UTC date and the query key — no vendor name, slug, id or offer field is an input. The list above is every one of the 3 entries in that order, not a prefix of it. The algorithm is published, so anyone can reproduce this page's order without asking us.
How Render compares against every one of the 28 we list, not against a selection of them. A surface with room for every member of a tied set may rotate their order. A surface with room for only some of them names none of them, because which ones it named would be the claim, and a claim seeded on the date is not the one we serve tomorrow. How we decide this.
Left out of this list: PythonAnywhere (shares no subtype with this product), anvil.works (shares no subtype with this product), codenameone.com (none of this category's subtypes apply), domcloud.co (shares no subtype with this product), WunderGraph (none of this category's subtypes apply), YepCode (none of this category's subtypes apply), Activepieces (none of this category's subtypes apply), Back4App (shares no subtype with this product), bismuth.cloud (we have not classified this record), Claw.cloud (we have not classified this record), connectycube.com (none of this category's subtypes apply), ETLR (none of this category's subtypes apply), Flutter Flow (none of this category's subtypes apply), IFTTT (none of this category's subtypes apply), Integrately (none of this category's subtypes apply), LeanCloud (shares no subtype with this product), paraio.com (shares no subtype with this product), simperium.com (shares no subtype with this product), Alwaysdata (shares no subtype with this product), Awardspace.com (shares no subtype with this product), Bubble (shares no subtype with this product), FreeFlarum (shares no subtype with this product), Oaysus (we have not classified this record), pantheon.io (shares no subtype with this product), readthedocs.org (shares no subtype with this product), Serv00.com (shares no subtype with this product), tilda.cc (shares no subtype with this product), Versoly (shares no subtype with this product), Cloudflare Sandboxes (shares no subtype with this product), Cloudflare Dynamic Workers (shares no subtype with this product), OpenVPS (we have not classified this record), Vercel Sandbox (shares no subtype with this product). Each is still listed in Cloud Hosting, with the vendor's own words we read that from on its page. How we decide this.
Recompute today's order yourself. The order above is a permutation seeded only on the UTC date and the query key — no vendor name, slug, id or offer field is an input. The list above is every one of the 28 entries in that order, not a prefix of it. The algorithm is published, so anyone can reproduce this page's order without asking us.
We do not push notifications. Every change we record is readable the moment it lands, and the JSON answer carries an ETag — send it back as If-None-Match and an unchanged answer costs one 304.
Yes, Render offers a free tier: Hobby. Hobby plan, $0 a month plus compute. Free web services (512 MB RAM, 0.1 CPU) spin down after 15 minutes without traffic, with 750 free instance hours per workspace a month. One free Postgres database ...
What is Render's free tier?
Render's free tier is called "Hobby". Hobby plan, $0 a month plus compute. Free web services (512 MB RAM, 0.1 CPU) spin down after 15 minutes without traffic, with 750 free instance hours per workspace a month. One free Postgres database (256 MB RAM, 1 GB storage, 30-day expiry) and one free Key Value instance (25 MB, not continuously persisted to disk) per workspace. 5 GB bandwidth/month included then $0.15/GB; without a payment method on file, Render suspends Free services for the rest of the month instead. 500 build minutes/month. Up to 25 services, unlimited projects with 2 environments each. Pro is $25 a month plus compute. Render's docs say not to use Free instances for production applications. (From https://render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.) Free web services cannot send outbound traffic on ports 25, 465, or 587, commonly used for SMTP. (From https://render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.) A free Postgres database expires 30 days after creation and becomes inaccessible. You then have a 14-day grace period to upgrade to a paid plan before Render deletes it with all its data. (From https://render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.) Free Postgres databases have no backups of any kind. (From https://render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.) A free web service loses any changes to its local filesystem, such as uploaded images or a SQLite database, every time it redeploys, restarts or spins down, and it cannot attach a persistent disk. (From https://render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.)
Is Render's free tier reliable?
Render's free tier requires caution because of one specific recorded change, on 2026-04-23: Render replaced its workspace plans. Bandwidth for the Hobby tier went from 100 GB to 5 GB included per month, then $0.15 per GB, and Hobby workspaces are now capped at 25 services. New workspaces got the new plans on 2026-04-23 and existing workspaces moved on 2026-08-01. Free web services, Postgres and Key Value kept their specs, and free web services draw on the workspace's included bandwidth. Source: https://render.com/changelog/updated-plans-for-render-workspaces
Is Render's free tier good for production?
No. Render's free tier is not for production use, by Render's own terms: "Free instances have important limitations… Do not use them for production applications." (From render.com/docs/free, read 2026-10-05.) We also rate Render's pricing caution, because of one recorded pricing restructure, on 2026-04-23. Consider free alternatives in Cloud Hosting.
What changed in Render's pricing?
Render has had 1 recorded pricing change. Most recently: Render replaced its workspace plans. Bandwidth for the Hobby tier went from 100 GB to 5 GB included per month, then $0.15 per GB, and Hobby workspaces are now capped at 25 services. New workspaces got the new plans on 2026-04-23 and existing workspaces moved on 2026-08-01. Free web services, Postgres and Key Value kept their specs, and free web services draw on the workspace's included bandwidth. Source: https://render.com/changelog/updated-plans-for-render-workspaces (2026-04-23).
What are the best free alternatives to Render?
We publish no ranking of these. Nothing we record measures popularity or generosity, so naming a best or a top few would be our preference rather than our data. We hold 28 free alternatives to Render in Cloud Hosting, each listed above with its tier. Of those, 17 carry no recorded demerit and are indistinguishable under every signal we hold, so they are listed in an order that rotates daily, 10 are demoted with the reason named, 1 is listed last behind a stated gate. Our ranking rule is published at /criteria.
When will I outgrow Render's free tier?
At 1 GB storage, you'll need to upgrade. When you outgrow the free tier, evaluate paid plans against alternatives — sometimes a competitor's free tier covers what you need.
What category is Render in?
Render is categorized under Cloud Hosting on AgentDeals. We list 28 other Cloud Hosting services alongside it, every one of them on this page with its free tier and the stability we publish for it.