Platforms PaaS — 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.
PaaS Hosting / Deployment Platform
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 limitsVercel Hobby $0: 100GB bandwidth, 100 hrs build, 1000 Serverless Function execution hrs, 100GB-hrs. Pro $20/seat/mo incl 1TB bandwidth + $40 per 100GB overage, $0.15/GB-hr compute overage, unlimited team seats. Netlify Free 100GB BW, 300 build mins $0; Pro $19/mo 1TB BW. Railway Free $5 credit trial, Pro $20/mo + $0.000463/vCPU-sec & $0.000005/GB-sec overage. Render Free 750 hrs/mo (spins down) $0; Starter $19/mo always-on. Fly.io Free 3 shared-cpu VMs 3GB RAM, 160GB BW $0; overage $0.05/GB BW, $0.00001375/vCPU-sec. Heroku Eco $5/mo 1000 dyno-hrs/mo, Basic $7/mo 24/7, Standard $25/mo.
Buildpack / Container Build System
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsCNB OSS Free unlimited self-hosted builds $0. Paketo Buildpacks Free OSS $0. Docker Build Cloud Free 1 concurrent builder, 200 build mins/mo $0; Team $20/mo 2 concurrent + 500 mins/mo + $0.008/min overage; Team Pro $30/mo. Build time overage $0.005/min. Storage free 10GB, then $0.10/GB-mo.
Managed PostgreSQL for PaaS
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 limitsSupabase Free 500MB DB size, 1GB file storage, 50k MAU, 2GB bandwidth, daily backups $0. Pro $25/mo incl 8GB DB, 100GB storage, 100GB BW, PITR 7d. Overage: $0.125/GB DB, $0.021/GB storage, $0.09/GB BW. Neon Free 0.5GB storage, 190 compute hrs, 10 branches $0. Pro $19/mo incl 10GB storage, 300 compute hrs; over $0.10/GB-mo storage, $0.16/compute-hr. PlanetScale Free 5GB storage, 1B reads/mo $0; Scaler $29/mo 10GB + $1.50/M reads over.
Managed Object Storage for PaaS
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsR2 Free 10GB storage, 10M Class A ops, 10M Class B ops, 10GB egress (zero egress fees normally) $0/mo. Paid $0.015/GB-mo storage + $4.50/M Class A, $0.36/M Class B after free tier, $0 egress. S3 $0.023/GB-mo first 50TB, $0.09/GB egress, $0.005/1000 PUT, $0.0004/1000 GET. B2 $0.006/GB-mo storage, $0.01/GB egress, free egress via Cloudflare. Free tiers: B2 10GB free, S3 5GB 12mo free.
CI/CD Minutes / Pipelines for PaaS
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Actions Free accounts 2000 Linux mins + 500 macOS mins/mo $0, Pro accounts 3000 mins/mo, Team 3000+. Overage: Linux $0.008/min, Windows $0.016/min, macOS $0.08/min. 500MB cache free + 1GB artifacts. GitLab CI Free 400 mins/mo $0, Premium $29/user/mo 10k mins. CircleCI Free 6000 mins/mo $0.
Secrets Management for PaaS
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 limitsInfisical OSS self-host unlimited projects/secrets/users $0. Cloud Free $0: 5 projects, 3 envs, 2 team members. Starter $19/mo 10 projects. Doppler Free 5 users, 100 secrets, 1 project $0; Pro $10/user/mo unlimited secrets/projects + audit 30d; Team $20/user/mo + custom RBAC. $0 overage, seat-based. Infisical Pro $20/mo flat 10 users.
Application Monitoring / APM for PaaS
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsSentry Free 5k errors + 10k replays + 10k transactions/mo $0. Team $26/mo incl 50k errors, 50k replays, over $0.000289/error, $0.000099/replay. Datadog APM $15/host/mo Lite: 100k spans/mo; Pro $31/host/mo; Custom spans $0.10/M over. Uptrace OSS free self-host on 1 host, traces+logs. New Relic Free 100GB ingest/mo $0.
Log Management for PaaS
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsLogtail Free 1GB/mo logs, 3-day retention $0. Small $24/mo 7GB retention 7d, over $0.50/GB. Medium $83/mo 30GB 14d. Datadog Logs $0.10/GB ingested + $1.70/M scanned for rehydration, 15mo retention optional $0.10/GB-mo. Loki OSS Free self-host storage $0, pay S3. Papertrail Free 50MB/mo 2-day $0.
Managed Redis / KV Cache for PaaS
Stores frequent results in fast memory so you serve less from the database. Big lever for speed and cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsUpstash Redis Free 10k commands/day, 256MB DB, daily backup $0. Pay-as-you-go $0.20/100k commands + $0.25/GB storage/mo. Pro $10/mo incl 100k cmds/day 1GB, over same rate. Redis Cloud Free 30MB $0; Essentials $5/mo 100MB + $0.09/10k ops. Dragonfly Free 500MB $0. 1M req free tier.
Preview / Ephemeral Environments
An isolated place to test changes before real users see them. Catches bugs without embarrassing your production users.Pricing & free-tier limitsVercel Hobby includes unlimited preview deployments, 2 concurrent builds $0. Pro $20/seat/mo unlimited previews, 12 concurrent builds. Netlify Deploy Previews 100GB BW pooled $0 free; Pro 1TB $19/mo. Railway PR environments $5 free credit then usage $0.000463/vCPU-sec. PlanetScale branching free 2 branches free tier.
Custom Domains & TLS Management
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 limitsLet's Encrypt Free 50 certs per registered domain/week $0; wildcard via DNS-01 $0; renewal auto. Cloudflare Free unlimited edge certs $0. Vercel Hobby 50 domains + auto TLS/renew $0, Pro unlimited $20/seat. Netlify Free 100 domains $0. AWS ACM Free public certs $0 with ELB/CloudFront.
How this hobby platforms paas checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a hobby platforms paas 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.