Developer Tools And Infrastructure — 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.
Source Control Hosting / VCS Infrastructure
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 limitsFree: $0, 2000 Actions mins/mo (Linux), 500MB Packages storage / Team: $4/user/mo - 3000 mins, 2GB Packages / Enterprise: $21/user/mo (annual) - 50k mins included, $0.008/min Linux overage, $0.08/min macOS, Packages $0.008/GB-day storage + $0.50/GB transfer / GitLab Self-hosted CE $0 / Premium SaaS $29/user/mo / Ultimate $99/user/mo
CI/CD Orchestration (Toolchain Build Pipeline)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: GH Actions 2000 mins, 500 macOS mins, 1 concurrent job / Jenkins $0 self-hosted infra cost only / BuildKite Free: 1 team, unlimited builds self-hosted agents $0 / Paid Teams: $15/user/mo + self-hosted agent infra / GH Large Runners: 4-vCPU $0.016/min, 16-vCPU $0.064/min, 64-vCPU $0.32/min / CircleCI Free: 6k mins, Paid $30/mo - 25k credits, $0.00002/credit overage ($0.02 per 1k credits)
Build Farm / Compile Farm / Remote Execution (Bazel RBE)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: BuildBuddy OSS $0 self-hosted / Cloud Free: 1000 build-mins/mo, 1GB remote cache / Depot Free: 2000 mins/mo / Starter: BuildBuddy $60/mo - 4 parallel workflows, 10GB cache, $0.60/GB overage cache storage / Paid: EngFlow $50k+/year typical $0.002/min remote exec + $0.20/GB cache transfer / Incredibuild $20/mo per core / Large runners cluster $0.008-$0.32/min
Artifact Registry (npm / PyPI / Maven / NuGet / Docker / Go)
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 limitsFree: GH Packages 500MB storage + 1GB egress/mo / Cloudsmith Free: 500MB storage, 100k requests/mo / JFrog Free: 2GB storage, 10GB transfer, 3 repos max / Starter: Cloudsmith $25/mo - 5GB storage, $0.15/GB overage, 500GB bandwidth / Paid: JFrog Cloud Pro $56/mo - 100GB storage, 2TB transfer $0.10/GB overage / Enterprise $1350/mo - $4500/mo contact sales / CodeArtifact $0.05/GB-month storage + $0.05 per 10k requests
Package Signing + Sigstore (Cosign / Fulcio / Rekor)
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 limitsFree: Sigstore public $0 unlimited signing, OIDC keyless / Cosign OSS $0 / GitHub Attestation Free: 110GB-hours public, private 500MB free / AWS Signer Free: first 1000 signs/yr then $0.10/signing job / Chainguard Free: 10 images signed, Paid Teams $1000/mo - 500 images, $2/image overage / AWS Signer Paid: $0.10/job + KMS key $1/mo
CDN for SDK / Toolchain Distribution
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: Cloudflare Free: unlimited CDN transfer + 10GB R2 storage + 10M Class A ops/mo / GH Releases Free: 100GB bandwidth / CloudFront Free tier 1TB transfer first 12mo then $0.085/GB first 10TB / Pro: Cloudflare Pro $20/mo WAF included, same $0 CDN overage / Bunny $1-10/mo min + $0.01/GB NA/EU, $0.03/GB Asia $0.02/GB over / Fastly $0 starter $0.12/GB min $50/mo effective / Enterprise contact sales $0.02-0.08/GB
Documentation Hosting (SDK Docs / API Reference / Changelog)
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 limitsFree: ReadTheDocs $0 1 concurrent build / GH Pages $0 100GB bandwidth / Cloudflare Pages Free: unlimited bandwidth, 500 builds/mo, 20k files / Mintlify Starter $120/mo - 1M pageviews, $0.05 per 1k pageviews over / ReadTheDocs Business $50/mo - 20k pageviews, $0.003/view over, private docs / GitBook Team $40/mo - $0.10 per extra 1k views / Fern Docs Growth $350/mo
Code Signing Certificate Management (Installer Signing Pipeline)
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 limitsFree: Self-signed $0 (no OS trust) / Sigstore free no EV / Apple Dev $99/year signing included + notarization / SSL.com EV $249/year unlimited signs via eSigner, eSigner API $120/year base, $0.25/sign after 10 free / Microsoft Trusted Signing $22/mo - 500 signs $0.05/sign over, $300/mo - 5000 signs / DigiCert EV $699/year + HSM token $300 one-time / Azure Key Vault Managed HSM $1.40/HSM/hour ~$1008/mo + $0.03/10k transactions
Secrets Management for Build & Release Pipeline
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: Vault OSS $0 / Doppler Free: 100 secrets, 2 projects, 50 API calls/day / Infisical Free self-hosted unlimited / HCP Vault Starter $0.03/hr cluster (~$22/mo) + $0.50/10k API calls / AWS Secrets Manager $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k API calls / Dopplers Starter $18/mo - 500 secrets, $0.05/secret over / 1Password Business $19.99/user/mo secrets included
Crash Reporting & Symbolication (Native IDE / Compiler crashes)
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 limitsFree: Sentry Dev: 5k errors/mo, 1k session replays, 10k performance spans / GlitchTip self-hosted $0 unlimited / Team $26/mo - 50k errors included, $0.000248/error overage ($0.248/1k) / Business $80/mo - 100k errors, $0.00022/error over / Bugsnag Free: 7.5k events/mo, Lite $39/mo 25k events $0.0015/event over / Datadog $12/active committer/mo
Telemetry / Product Analytics (IDE usage, Compiler adoption)
Understands your users and supports them. Drives product decisions and retention.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: PostHog Free: 1M events/mo, 5k session replays/mo, 1M feature flag requests / Self-hosted OSS $0 unlimited / Mixpanel Free: 100k MTU 1M events / Segment Free: 1k MTU up to 2 sources / Paid: PostHog Scale $0.000248/event ($248 per 1M) + $0.005/replay, $0.0002/flag req over free / Segment Teams $120/mo - 10k MTU, $0.01 per extra MTU / Mixpanel Growth $28/mo base + usage $0.28 per 1k MTU over
How this hobby developer tools and infrastructure checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a hobby developer tools and infrastructure 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.