Best free hosting for your first app — 7 working options and their catches

You can put your first site online for $0 in five minutes — that's normal now. But the word "free" carries a different price everywhere. On one host the site sleeps after idle. On another there's a traffic cap. On a third — static only, no backend.

Here are seven places where you can genuinely host a first project for free. Each with what it's for and the catch, so you choose for your task instead of by trial and error. If you haven't deployed anything yet — start here.

1. Vercel — for frontend and Next.js

Connect a GitHub repo — and the site is live in a minute. Every commit deploys itself. Perfect for React/Next.js and landing pages.

Catch: serverless functions on the free tier have limits, and it asks you to move commercial projects to a paid plan.

2. Netlify — static plus forms and functions

A close sibling of Vercel. Same deploy-from-repo, plus niceties: forms without a backend, small functions. Great for a one-pager or a blog. We covered the difference in Vercel vs Netlify.

Catch: the free tier caps build minutes and traffic. Plenty for a small project; for a growing one, keep an eye on it.

3. GitHub Pages — static, free forever

The simplest path. Put HTML/CSS/JS in a repo — get a site on github.io. Free with no asterisks, never sleeps.

Catch: static only. No backend, no database — pure frontend. For a portfolio, docs, a landing page — ideal. For an app with logic — no.

4. Cloudflare Pages — static on a fast network

Also static hosting, but on top of Cloudflare's huge CDN — the site loads fast worldwide. Very generous free traffic. Workers sit alongside for a light backend.

Catch: Workers are serverless — unfamiliar after a normal server, you'll need to shift your thinking a bit.

5. Render — when you need a real backend

This is full-stack: you can run a Node/Python server and a database. A step up from pure static, when your app grows logic.

Catch: the free web service sleeps after idle. The first visitor after a pause waits for a "cold start" — a few seconds while the service wakes.

6. Supabase — a free backend for your app

Not site hosting, but the "filling": a database, auth, and file storage out of the box. Often this is the backend for your Vercel frontend. How it differs from the alternative is in Supabase vs Firebase.

Catch: a free project pauses after ~a week without activity. Fine for a pet project; for production, the plan is paid.

7. Hugging Face Spaces — for AI demos

If you built something with a model and want to show it — Spaces puts up a Gradio or Streamlit demo in a couple of clicks. A showcase for an AI project.

Catch: the free tier has a modest CPU. A light demo flies; a heavy model will want a paid GPU.

What to pick in the end

Briefly, by task:

• Static site, portfolio, landing → GitHub Pages or Cloudflare Pages.
• Frontend on React/Next.js → Vercel or Netlify.
• App with a backend and database → Render plus Supabase.
• AI demo → Hugging Face Spaces.

After that the rest is small — deploy it and send friends the link.

Is free hosting enough for a real project?

For a start, a pet project, and your first users — with room to spare. Limits bite when noticeable traffic arrives or you need stability without "cold starts." That's a nice problem: you'll reach it with a working product, and the move to a paid plan will be a deliberate one.

And is "free" really forever?

For static (GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages) — yes, essentially forever. For backend services, "free" means "with a pause and limits." Plan terms change, so before launch check the current free plan — a couple of minutes saves a surprise.