Infrastructure IaaS — hobby stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Compute VM Platform (Hypervisor / VM Provider)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS Free Tier: 750 hrs t2/t3.micro 12 months. After: t3.micro $0.0104/hr (~$7.60/mo), t3.small $0.0208/hr (~$15.18/mo), t3.medium $0.0416/hr (~$30.36/mo), m6i.large $0.096/hr (~$70/mo). GCP e2-micro: 1 VM always-free (0.25 vCPU avg) + 30GB disk + 1GB egress, after e2-micro $0.00705/hr (~$5.15/mo). Hetzner CX11 $4.15/mo (20GB disk, 20TB traffic), CX22 $7.25/mo, CCX33 $0.11/hr. Oracle Always Free: 2x AMD micro + 4x Ampere A1. Overage: AWS egress 100GB free then $0.09/GB, Hetzner 20TB included $1.19/TB over.
Block Storage / VM Disks (EBS/Persistent Disk equivalent)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS gp3 $0.08/GB-mo + 3000 IOPS & 125MB/s free baseline, addtl IOPS $0.005/prov IOPS-mo over 3000, throughput $0.04/MBps-mo over 125. Snapshot $0.05/GB-mo std / $0.0125 archive. Free 30GB 12mo + 1M snapshots. GCP Std $0.04/GB-mo, Balanced $0.10/GB-mo, Extreme $0.125/GB-mo. Snapshot $0.05/GB-mo std. Hetzner Volume $0.0432/GB-mo (3600 IOPS). Over: 500GB gp3 = $40/mo + IOPS.
Object Storage for VM Images, ISOs & Backup Artifacts
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsS3: $0.023/GB-mo first 50TB, $0.022 50-500TB. PUT $0.005/1k, GET $0.0004/1k. Egress $0.09/GB first 10TB. Free: 5GB std 12mo + 20k GET, 2k PUT. R2 Free: 10GB storage, 10M Class A, 10M Class B, zero egress fees. After: $0.015/GB-mo storage, $4.50/M Class A, $0.36/M Class B. B2: Free 10GB storage + 1GB egress/day + 2500 Class B/day, after $0.006/GB-mo storage + $0.01/GB egress + $0.005/1k Class B. Wasabi 1TB min $6.99 no egress.
VPC Networking / Software-Defined Network (SDN)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsVPC creation $0 free. Limits: 5 VPCs/region soft default (up to 1000 on request), 500 subnets, 1000 routes. Flow Logs to S3 $0 free enable + storage $0.023/GB; to CloudWatch $0.50/GB ingested. VPC Peering $0.01/GB intra-region inter-AZ both directions, $0.02/GB cross-region US. GCP: ingress free, inter-zone $0.01/GB, internet egress $0.12/GB first TB. Overage: NAT, LB separate costs.
Load Balancer (L4 TCP/UDP + L7 HTTP/HTTPS for VM Pools)
Encrypts traffic between your users and your servers. Without it browsers flag your site as insecure and you lose trust and search ranking.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS ALB Free: 750hrs + 15 LCU-hrs + 750 new connections 12mo. After: $0.0225/hr (~$16.43/mo per ALB) + LCU $0.008/hr (LCU = 25 new conn/s, 3000 active, 1GB/hr processed, 1000 rule eval/s). NLB: $0.0225/hr + $0.006/NLCU-hr (800 new flows, 100k active, 1GB). 1TB processed ALB ~ $24. Cloudflare LB Free 1 LB, $5/mo per addtl LB, 500k queries included then $5/500k. Hetzner LB $5.83/mo includes 20TB? Actually 2TB LB traffic $1.19/TB over.
SSH Bastion / Privileged Access Management (PAM)
Controls who can do what inside your admin tooling. Limits blast radius if an account is compromised.Pricing & free-tier limitsTeleport Community Free self-host cost ~$10/mo VM. Cloud Team $12/user/mo minimum 5 users $720/yr, includes Device Trust. Enterprise $21/user/mo + $2 per 10k session events. Tailscale Free: 3 users, 100 devices, unlimited data, 1 subnet router. Premium $6/user/mo after. AWS SSM Session Manager Free, logs to S3 $0.023/GB + CloudWatch $0.50/GB ingested. Boundary OSS free self-host ~$15/mo.
Infrastructure Monitoring & Host Metrics (CPU/Mem/Disk/Net)
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsGrafana Free: 10k series, 50GB logs, 50GB traces, 14d retention, 3 users. After Pro $8/user/mo + $8/1k series over 10k + $0.50/GB logs over 50GB, $0.50/GB traces over. Prometheus self-host EBS $0.08/GB-mo storage ~$8/mo per 100GB retention. Datadog: 14-day free trial, then Pro $15/host/mo includes 35d metrics, 150 custom metrics/host free then $0.05/metric/mo. Enterprise $23/host/mo. 100 hosts = $1500/mo.
Secrets Management for Infrastructure (Keys, Certs, API tokens)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsVault OSS free unlimited secrets, host $5-10/mo. HCP Vault Dedicated: $0.035/hr dev (~$25/mo), $0.065/hr small, $0.15/hr med. Storage $0.10/GB-mo. AWS Secrets: $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k calls. Free 30-day? None. Example: 100 secrets, 1M calls/mo = $40 + $5 = $45/mo. GCP Secret Manager: Free 6 secrets active, then $0.06/secret/mo + $0.03/10k accesses. Over: 10k additional ops ~$0.03.
Backup for VMs / Disk Snapshots & Lifecycle Policies
Copies of your data so a bug, hack, or outage doesn’t become permanent loss. Cheap insurance every serious project needs.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS Backup: Warm $0.05/GB-mo, cold $0.01/GB-mo, restore $0.02/GB. EBS Snapshots std $0.05/GB-mo, archive $0.0125/GB-mo. Free: 10GB backup storage free first month. Hetzner Auto Backup 20% of VM price (CX11 $0.83/mo backup). Snapshot $0.011/GB-mo (100GB = $1.10/mo). Veeam Community Free 10 instances unlimited repos. After VUL license $15/VM/mo billed annually min 10 pack $150/mo. Restores free.
Autoscaling / Managed Instance Groups (MIG/VMSS)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsASG management $0 free. Cost is underlying compute: e.g., 10x t3.medium on-demand $0.0416/hr = $303/mo, spot $0.0124/hr = $90/mo (70% save). GCP MIG autoscaler free. Azure VMSS free. Spot.io charges 20% of spot savings: if you save $210/mo, they charge $42. AWS Auto Scaling Plans free. No overage beyond compute. Predictive scaling free. Scheduled scaling free.
DNS Management for Infrastructure (Internal + External Zones)
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free unlimited DNS queries, no charge, 1 sec propagation. Route53: $0.50 per hosted zone/mo first 25, $0.10/25 after? Actually $0.50 first 25, $0.10/1k extra? No: $0.50 up to 25, then $0.10? Standard says $0.50/zone/mo. Queries $0.40/M std (first 1B), $0.20/M after 1B. Latency/Geo $0.70/M. Health checks $0.50/check/mo first 50 free. Free tier: 1 hosted zone + 1M queries/mo 12mo. Resolver endpoints: $0.125/hr (~$91/mo per 2 endpoints per AZ) + $0.45/M queries.
How this hobby infrastructure iaas checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a hobby infrastructure iaas build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.