App hosting and PaaS
App hosts deploy and run your code without requiring you to manage a server.
Use for: Web apps, APIs and static sites.
French managed cloud hosting that runs PHP, Python, Node.js, Ruby, Java and other apps with unlimited sites, databases and mailboxes per account, including a free-for-life personal plan.
AWS's Git-based hosting for static, single-page and server-rendered apps (Next.js, Nuxt), served through CloudFront and billed per build minute, GB served and SSR request.
Microsoft's managed platform for web apps and APIs on Windows or Linux, with first-class .NET and Java support, plan-based pricing and enterprise networking options.
Free, self-hosted PaaS that wraps Docker Swarm, nginx and Let's Encrypt in a web dashboard and CLI, with one-click apps and multi-node scaling.
French PaaS running on its own data centers in France, with git-push deploys for a dozen runtimes, managed databases, per-second billing and ISO 27001 and HDS certification.
Serverless functions and full-stack apps running in V8 isolates in 330+ cities, with free unlimited static asset requests and no egress charges; Pages Functions bill the same way.
Open-source (Apache 2.0), self-hostable PaaS with a web dashboard that deploys apps, databases and 280+ one-click services to any server you can reach over SSH.
Serverless hosting for JavaScript and TypeScript apps from the creators of Deno, running in V8 isolates with Node and npm compatibility, PR previews with database clones, and OpenTelemetry built in.
DigitalOcean's managed app platform: flat monthly container prices with bandwidth included, free static sites, and DigitalOcean's managed databases and Droplets on the same bill.
MIT-licensed 'mini-Heroku' that turns one Linux server into a git-push PaaS using Heroku buildpacks and Docker, driven from the command line.
Open-source, self-hostable PaaS built on Docker, Docker Compose and Swarm, with database backups, multi-server deploys and Traefik routing; a hosted control plane costs $4.50 per server.
Runs Docker images as fast-booting Firecracker VMs (Machines) in 18+ regions, billed per second with no plans, plus managed Postgres and agent-oriented Sprites.
Free static site hosting straight from a GitHub repository, with custom domains, Jekyll or GitHub Actions builds, and a soft 100 GB monthly bandwidth limit; not allowed for commercial sites.
Google's serverless container platform: deploy any container or source code, scale to zero, and pay per 100 ms of CPU and memory, with a monthly free tier.
The original git-push PaaS, now owned by Salesforce and in a 'sustaining engineering' phase since February 2026: stable dynos, Heroku Postgres and 150+ add-ons, few new features.
Serverless platform for containers, APIs and GPU inference on bare metal in 50+ locations, with scale-to-zero and per-second billing; joining Mistral AI and closed to free signups since 2026.
Serverless app platform that hosts up to 20 projects free and charges only for requests, never idle time, with optional fixed-price persistent servers, Postgres and Redis-compatible storage.
Git, CLI or drag-and-drop hosting for static and full-stack web projects, billed since September 2025 in credits that cover deploys, bandwidth, compute and requests.
A developer platform built on Kubernetes that runs services, jobs, databases and GPU workloads on Northflank's cloud or inside your own AWS, GCP, Azure or other cluster.
Managed hosting for Docker Compose apps, bots and databases on a private EU virtual machine, with a flat monthly price, GitHub deploys, nightly backups and MCP tools for coding agents.
Python-only hosting with an in-browser IDE, consoles and scheduled tasks, where a Django or Flask site goes live in minutes; free beginner accounts and paid plans from $10 a month.
A container platform that bills CPU, memory and disk per second of actual use, with a visual project canvas and one-click Postgres, MySQL, Redis and MongoDB templates.
A Heroku-style platform for web services, workers, cron jobs, static sites, Postgres and Redis-compatible Key Value, with fixed-size instances billed per second.
French Heroku-style PaaS and DBaaS with all data centers in Europe, per-minute billing, containers that never sleep, and ISO 27001, HDS and SecNumCloud options.
Kinsta's developer platform for applications, managed databases, R2-backed object storage and free static sites, with 25 data center locations and no seat pricing.
The successor to Platform.sh: a YAML-configured PaaS where every Git branch can become a preview environment with cloned data, on five clouds in 14 regions.
Git-driven hosting for frontend frameworks and serverless functions, built by the Next.js team, with preview deployments and usage-based billing on top of a $20 Pro seat.
An AI-assisted deployment platform that builds and runs your services on dedicated servers you rent through it (AWS, GCP, Hetzner and others) or bring yourself, with a free dashboard tier.
| Tool | Pricing | Runs | Free tier sleeps? | Managed DBs | Regions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| alwaysdata alwaysdata.com · EU | Freemium | PHP, Python, Node.js, Ruby, Java and more, multi-version | No | MariaDB (MySQL), PostgreSQL | Europe (France) |
| AWS Amplify Hosting aws.amazon.com · EU | Paid | Static, SPA and SSR (Next.js, Nuxt) | Serverless SSR, billed per request | Via AWS (DynamoDB, AppSync); not bundled | AWS regions; CloudFront 600+ PoPs |
| Azure App Service azure.microsoft.com · EU | Freemium | .NET, Java (Tomcat, JBoss EAP), Node.js, PHP, Python, containers | Free/Basic apps idle out; no scale to zero | Via Azure (Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, Postgres); not bundled | Most Azure regions worldwide |
| CapRover caprover.com · OSS · EU | Open source | Any container: Node.js, Python, PHP, Java, Ruby, .NET, Go | No; apps run on your servers | One-click MariaDB, MySQL, MongoDB, Postgres (self-run) | Wherever your servers are |
| Clever Cloud clever.cloud · EU | Paid | Node, Python, PHP, Java, Scala, Go, Rust, Ruby, .NET, Elixir, Haskell, Docker | No sleep; pay only while running, apps can be paused | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch | Own data centers in France |
| Cloudflare Workers (incl. Pages) workers.cloudflare.com · EU | Freemium | JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Rust, Wasm (V8 isolates) | No cold starts; billed on CPU time only | D1 (SQLite), KV, Durable Objects, Hyperdrive to Postgres/MySQL | 330+ cities, runs everywhere by default |
| Coolify coolify.io · OSS · EU | Open source | Any language (Nixpacks, Dockerfile, Docker Compose) | No; apps run on your own servers | Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, Redis, MongoDB and more (self-run) | Wherever your servers are |
| Deno Deploy deno.com | Freemium | JavaScript, TypeScript (Deno, with Node/npm compatibility) | Serverless isolates; billed on CPU and memory time | Deno KV; link or provision Postgres, Prisma | |
| DigitalOcean App Platform digitalocean.com · EU | Freemium | Buildpacks or Dockerfile; any Linux AMD64 image | No on paid containers; Scale to Zero in private preview | Dev Postgres ($7); DO Managed Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, Valkey, Kafka, OpenSearch | 13 (US, Canada, Europe, India, Singapore, Australia) |
| Dokku dokku.com · OSS · EU | Open source | Any via Heroku buildpacks or Dockerfile | No; apps run on your own server | Official datastore plugins (e.g. Postgres, MySQL, Redis) | Wherever your server is |
| Dokploy dokploy.com · OSS · EU | Open source | Any via Nixpacks, Heroku buildpacks, Dockerfile, Compose | No; apps run on your servers | MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MariaDB, Redis, libSQL (self-run) | Wherever your servers are |
| Fly.io fly.io · EU | Paid | Any Docker/OCI image | Machines can auto-stop when idle (optional) | Managed Postgres | 18 (NA, EU, APAC, South America, Africa) |
| GitHub Pages pages.github.com | Free | Static only (HTML, CSS, JS); Jekyll or Actions builds | Static; nothing to sleep | None | Served globally |
| Google Cloud Run cloud.google.com · EU | Freemium | Any container; source deploys for Go, Node, Python, Java, .NET, Ruby | Scales to zero by default | Via Google Cloud (Cloud SQL, Firestore); not bundled | 40+ Google Cloud regions |
| Heroku heroku.com · EU | Paid | Node, Ruby, Python, Java, PHP, Go, Scala, Clojure, .NET; others via buildpacks | Eco dynos sleep after 30 min; Basic and up always on | Heroku Postgres, Key-Value Store (Redis) | Common Runtime: US, EU; Private Spaces: 10 regions |
| Koyeb koyeb.com · EU | Paid | Native builds for core runtimes, any Docker image | Scale-to-zero available | Serverless Postgres (with pgvector) | 7 core regions (US, EU, Asia); 50 on-demand on Scale |
| Leapcell leapcell.io | Freemium | Node.js/TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust | Serverless scales to zero; persistent servers optional | PostgreSQL, Redis-compatible KV | US, Japan/Asia and others |
| Netlify netlify.com | Freemium | Static sites; JavaScript/TypeScript functions | Serverless functions; free projects pause at credit cap | Netlify Database (managed Postgres), Blobs | Global CDN, 100+ edge locations |
| Northflank northflank.com · EU | Freemium | Any language via buildpacks or Dockerfile | No; Sandbox services are always on | Managed addons (databases, caches, queues) | 6+ managed regions; 600 BYOC regions |
| Pethost pethost.dev · EU | Paid | Docker Compose; any language supported by Docker | No sleeping or cold starts | Containers in your project, with nightly backups | EU; specific locations not stated |
| PythonAnywhere pythonanywhere.com | Freemium | Python (WSGI: Django, Flask, web2py, Bottle) | Web apps stay up; consoles and tasks limited by CPU-seconds | ||
| Railway railway.com · EU | Freemium | Any language via builders or Dockerfile | Optional Serverless mode sleeps idle services | Postgres, Postgres HA, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB templates | 4: California, Virginia, Amsterdam, Singapore |
| Render render.com · EU | Freemium | Node, Python, Go, Rust, Ruby, Elixir, any Docker image | Free web services sleep after 15 min; paid never | Postgres, Key Value (Redis-compatible) | 5: Oregon, Ohio, Virginia, Frankfurt, Singapore |
| Scalingo scalingo.com · EU | Paid | Ruby, PHP, Node.js, Python, Java, Go, Elixir, Scala, Clojure, Meteor | No; containers never sleep | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, caching, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, InfluxDB | Europe only (France), incl. SecNumCloud region |
| Sevalla sevalla.com · EU | Freemium | Any language via Git builds, Dockerfile or image | No sleeping; autoscaling available | 5 managed database types with daily backups | 25 data centers; static sites on 260+ PoPs |
| Upsun upsun.com · EU | Paid | 12+ runtimes (e.g. PHP, Python, Node.js) declared in YAML | Idle environments pause after 15 days | PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, Redis, MongoDB, Elasticsearch and more as services | 14 regions on AWS, Azure, GCP, IBM Cloud, OVHcloud |
| Vercel vercel.com · EU | Freemium | Node.js, Bun, Python, Go, Ruby, Rust, Wasm, Edge | Serverless, scales to zero (functions) | Blob storage; databases via Marketplace partners | Global CDN; functions in one region (iad1) by default |
| Zeabur zeabur.com · EU | Freemium | Auto-detected languages and frameworks, Dockerfile | No; services run on a dedicated server | Deployed as services/templates on your server | Depends on server provider; clusters in 10 regions |
No tools match these filters.
How to choose an app host
- Frontend-first hosts (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare) suit static sites and serverless functions; container platforms (Render, Railway, Fly.io) suit long-running servers, workers and websockets.
- Check whether the free or cheapest tier sleeps when idle, and how long a cold start takes.
- Usage-based pricing (bandwidth, function invocations, build minutes) can grow faster than a flat plan. Estimate your traffic against the published overage prices.
- See whether a managed database is available in the same region, or you will pay latency on every query.
- Commercial use is not allowed on some hobby tiers; read the plan terms before launching a paid product on one.
Questions
What replaced the Heroku free tier?
Heroku ended free dynos in 2022. Render, Koyeb and Fly.io are common replacements for small servers, and Vercel, Netlify and Cloudflare cover static sites and serverless functions. Each has different sleep and usage limits, shown in the table.
Which PaaS does not sleep on the free tier?
It changes often, which is why the table has a "Free tier sleeps?" column. Serverless platforms scale to zero by design but start in milliseconds; container platforms that sleep can take several seconds to wake.
Pricing changes
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Netlify adds Pro credit tiers with rollover
Netlify · source ↗
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Zeabur adjusts dedicated server and VPS prices
Zeabur · source ↗
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Render replaces per-seat plans with flat workspace plans and cuts included bandwidth
Render · source ↗
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Zeabur shuts its usage-billed shared cluster to new projects
Zeabur · source ↗
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Koyeb closes its free Starter plan to new users
Koyeb · source ↗