Tools And Pipeline Development — small scale 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.
Build System Hosting (Jenkins, TeamCity)
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 limitsJenkins Free $0 self-hosted; TeamCity Cloud Free: 3 agents + 100GB storage, 20k build credits; Paid $45/mo per extra agent, $0.040/GB overage, $0.003/credit; BuildKite Free 1 concurrent job + 5 users; Team plan $15/user/mo unlimited minutes
Artifact Storage for Tools & Builds
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 Free: 5GB 12mo; Paid $0.023/GB-mo storage $0.09/GB egress (first 100GB via CF free), $0.005/1k PUT; R2 Free 10GB, Paid $0.015/GB-mo $0 egress $4.50/M writes; Artifactory Free 2GB, Pro $45/mo 10GB then $0.50/GB overage
Version Control Hosting for Tools
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 limitsGitHub Free unlimited public repos, 2k Actions mins; Pro $4/user/mo; Enterprise $21/user/mo; Perforce Free 5 users 20 workspaces 0.5GB; Paid Helix $39/user/mo $444/yr paid annually, $0.50/GB overage LFS
CI/CD Runner Minutes & Orchestration
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGH Actions Free 2,000 Linux min/mo (Free account) 3,000 Pro, Linux $0.008/min overage Windows $0.016 macOS $0.08, $0.12 for large runners; CircleCI Free 6k min, Performance $15/mo + $0.008/credit; Buildkite $15/user/mo
Asset Pipeline Compute Orchestration
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 limitsECS Fargate Free Trial 100 vCPU-hr 3mo; Paid $0.04048/vCPU-hr + $0.004445/GB-hr + $0.02/GB ephemeral, $0.40/M requests; Hetzner CX22 $5.83/mo = ~$0.008/vCPU-hr; Cloud Run Jobs $0.000024/vCPU-s
Level Editor Web Hosting
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 Free 100GB BW 6k execution hrs 100k function invocations; Pro $20/user/mo 1TB BW $0.15/GB overage 1000 GB-hrs compute; CF Pages Free unlimited BW unlimited req $5/mo Pro; Netlify Free 100GB
Debugging & Profiling Telemetry Hosting
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 limitsSentry Free 5k errors/mo, 50k perf tx, 1GB attachments, 10k replays; Team $26/mo 50k errors $0.000355/error overage $0.00013/tx; Tracy Profiler Self Free $0; Datadog APM $31/host/mo
Automation & Job Scheduling Service
Scheduling, availability, and booking logic. Core to any appointment or reservation product.Pricing & free-tier limitsJenkins Free $0 unlimited jobs; n8n Self Free 5 active workflows + manual; Cloud Starter $24/mo 2.5k exec $0.01/exec overage; Windmill $28/user/mo 10k exec included $0.004/exec overage
Secrets Management for Pipeline
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 $0; HCP Vault $0.03/hr ~$21.6/mo per cluster + $0.03/10k tx; Doppler Free 5 users 100 secrets; Team $12/user/mo unlimited API $0.001/call overage; AWS SM $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k calls
Monitoring & APM for Pipeline Performance
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 Cloud Free 10k metrics series, 50GB logs, 50GB traces; Pro $29/mo; Datadog Infra $15/host/mo, APM $31/host, Logs $0.10/GB ingest + $1.70/M indexed 15d, $0.15/1k custom metrics overage
Container Registry for Tool Images
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 limitsGHCR Free 500MB storage + 1GB transfer for private, unlimited public; Paid via GitHub $0.25/GB storage $0.50/GB transfer; ECR $0.10/GB-mo + $0.09/GB egress, Free 500MB; Docker Hub Free 1 private repo unlimited pulls
Distributed Build & Compiler Cache
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitssccache OSS Free $0 plus S3 $0.023/GB; Hetzner Box 1TB $3.80/mo; Incredibuild Free 5 build-hrs/mo, Pro $15/user/mo 50 hrs then $0.20/hr, $0.05/GB cache; Gradle Ent $25/user/mo 2 cache nodes
Binary Asset Cache (Remote ccache)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsRedis OSS Free $0; Upstash Free 10k cmds/day 256MB 500k cache reads; Paid $0.20/100k commands; ElastiCache Serverless $0.125/GB-hr stored (~$90/GB-mo) + $0.0034/ECPU, $0.20/GB overage backup; Momento Free 500MB
Package Manager Hosting for Internal Tools
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 limitsVerdaccio Free $0; GH Packages Free 500MB storage + 1GB egress, $0.25/GB storage $0.50/GB transfer overage; JFrog Free 2GB $45/mo Pro 10GB $0.50/GB overage + $0.40/5k actions
Infrastructure as Code Execution
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 limitsTerraform OSS Free $0; TF Cloud Free 500 managed resources 5 users; Teams $20/user/mo 5k resources $0.00014/resource-hr overage, $0.01/run over 500/mo; Spacelift Free 1 stack $0, Starter $75/mo
Log Aggregation for Build Pipelines
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsLoki OSS Free; Grafana Cloud Free 50GB logs/mo then $0.50/GB overage; Datadog Logs $0.10/GB ingested + $0.10/2.5M events $1.70/mo per million log indexed 15d; Better Stack Free 1GB/mo, $24/mo 10GB $1/GB overage
Distributed Task Queue for Asset Cooking
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsRabbitMQ OSS Free $0; SQS Free 1M req/mo then $0.40/M requests $0.09/GB transfer; CloudAMQP Free 1M msgs/mo 100 queues, Lemur $19/mo; Redis Cloud Free 30MB then $0.20/GB $8/mo min
Message Bus for Pipeline Events
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 limitsNATS Free $0 self; Upstash Kafka Free 10k msgs/day; Confluent Free $100 credits, Standard $0.11/GB write $0.38/GB read $0.60/hr cluster, $0.50/M request overage; SNS $0.50/M + SQS $0.40/M
Database for Pipeline Metadata & Jobs
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Free 500MB DB, 2GB BW, 50k MAU; Neon Free 0.5GB storage 10GB transfer 190 compute-hr; RDS t4g.micro $13/mo + $0.115/GB-mo gp3 + $0.20/GB backup overage; Atlas M0 Free 512MB, M10 $57/mo
How this small scale tools and pipeline development checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a small scale tools and pipeline development 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.