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Aug 16, 2023
Top Free Heroku Alternatives to Consider [Updated Nov 2022]
Anand Sukumaran
What is Heroku
Heroku is a platform as a service (PaaS) that helps developers to build, run, and operate applications entirely in the cloud without having to configure servers and databases.
Why developers look for free heroku alternatives
The company is eliminating the free tiers of Heroku Dynos, Heroku Postgres and Heroku Data for Redis starting November 28, 2022. It's a sad news for thousands of developers who depend on Heroku's free dynos for hosting side-projects, doing PR reviews etc. So, In this article, I'm trying to list a few free products that you can consider as an alternative to Heroku.
List of heroku alternatives with a free plan
Well luckily, there are few platforms that can be used as a free alternative to heroku if you were using it for hosting your hobby apps, side projects, or some small production apps without much traffic.
Render
Render is a unified cloud to build and run your apps and websites with free TLS certificates, global CDN, DDoS protection and several other features that you used to get from Heroku. Their free plan is enough for you to get started deploying your applications. On the good side, they have a very active community to help you with anything.
Fly
Fly is a platform for running full stack apps and databases close to your users. They let you run small applications for free, and scale costs affordably as your needs grow.
Other Heroku Free Alternatives
render.com - One of the top Heroku alternatives with a free plan to get started.
fly.io - Run your full stack apps (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required.
railway.app - Railway is the cloud that takes the complexity out of shipping software.
cyclic.sh - Connect your GitHub repo. We will build, deploy and manage the hosting.
qoddi.com - Qoddi is a fully managed App Hosting Platform running on a tier 1 network at 10% of the cost of similar solutions.
deta.sh - Build & deploy your ideas on the universe's most developer friendly cloud platform.
adaptable.io - Just connect your GitHub repository and let Adaptable handle the rest.
alwaysdata.com - All your services in one place.
Final Thoughts
Heroku's free plan was one of the best methods to host smaller applications, especially side projects or test environments. We will surely miss Heroku's free plan. I have also summarised an open-source list of free heroku alternatives in Github. Feel free to submit a PR if you know any heroku alternative that I missed.
