Booking — 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.
Hosting / Compute 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 Free $0 100GB BW 6000 edge exec hrs 1000 builds / Pro $20/seat/mo + $40/100GB over $0.18/GB-hr over / Render Free 750hrs sleep / Starter $7/mo 512MB Standard $19/mo 2GB Pro $29/mo + $0.000013/sec over / Fly.io Free 3x shared VM $1.94/mo per 256MB VM $0.12/GB egress / AWS ECS Fargate $0.04048/vCPU/hr + $0.004445/GB/hr ~$35/mo micro EKS $0.10/hr cluster ~$73/mo + Fargate / GCP Cloud Run Free 2M reqs 360k GB-sec $0 + $0.00002400/vCPU-sec + $0.00000250/GB-sec + $0.12/GB egress
Primary Database (PostgreSQL - transactional bookings)
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 50k MAU 1GB storage 2GB BW 1 project / Pro $25/mo 8GB DB 100k MAU 100GB BW 100GB storage $0.125/GB DB over $0.0032/MAU over $0.021/GB BW over / Neon Free 0.5GB 100 CU hrs / Launch $19/mo 10GB 500 CU hrs $0.10/CU-hr over Scale $69/mo / AWS RDS db.t3.micro $0.017/hr ~$12.50/mo + $0.115/GB-mo db.t3.medium $0.068/hr ~$50/mo Multi-AZ 2x db.r6g.large $0.288/hr ~$210/mo / Aurora Serverless v2 $0.12/ACU-hr ~$87-350/mo Global DB $0.20/ACU-hr
Object Storage (Property Images, Invoices, Medical docs)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare R2 Free 10GB 10M Class A 10M Class B zero egress / Standard $0.015/GB-mo $4.50/M Class A $0.36/M Class B egress $0 / AWS S3 Standard $0.023/GB-mo first 50TB $0.09/GB egress $0.005/1k PUT $0.0004/1k GET + Object Lock $0 extra $0.0125/GB retention / Supabase Storage Free 1GB Pro 100GB $0.021/GB over $0.09/GB egress / Backblaze B2 $0/10GB free daily + $0.006/GB-mo + $0.01/GB download
Authentication / User Management
How users sign up, log in, and are authorized. Getting roles and access control right early prevents painful rewrites.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Auth Free 50k MAU / Clerk Free 10k MAU 5k M2M / Pro $25/mo 10k MAU incl $0.02/MAU over B2B $0.10/org over / Auth0 Free 7.5k MAU 1k M2M / Essentials $35/mo 500 MAU $0.07/MAU over Pro $240/mo 1000 MAU $0.06/MAU over + $0.07/M2M / Okta CIAM Free 25k MAU dev / B2C Enterprise $2500+/mo ~150k MAU Workforce $2/user/mo / WorkOS SSO $125/mo + Directory Sync $0.50/directory Free 1M MAU test
CDN / Edge Delivery & Image Optimization
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free unlimited CDN 3 rules $0 1 domain / Pro $20/mo 20 WAF image resizing 5k imgs/mo Polished/Mirage / Business $200/mo 50k resizes custom SSL / Enterprise $2k+/mo unlimited / BunnyCDN $1/mo min $0.01/GB-na + image opt $9.50/10k imgs / AWS CloudFront Free 1TB egress 12mo $0.085/GB first 10TB + $0.0075/10k HTTPS + image via Lambda@Edge $0.60/M / Vercel Image Opt Free 1k / Pro 5k incl then $5/1k
Calendar / Scheduling API - Booking Core [SUBDOMAIN]
Scheduling, availability, and booking logic. Core to any appointment or reservation product.Pricing & free-tier limitsCal.com OSS self-host Free $0 unlimited / Free hosted 1 event type unlimited bookings / Platform Starter $15/mo per user unlimited Google sync / Teams $30/user/mo Round Robin collective SAML / Enterprise custom / Cronofy Free dev 50 events / Pro $299/mo 2k events $0.05/event over / Nylas Scheduler Free 100 accts / Starter $125/mo 500 accts Pro $0.30/acct over / Google Calendar API Free 1M queries/day $0 / Calendly Free 1 event type / Standard $12/seat/mo unlimited
Maps / Geocoding / Places API - Location Search [SUBDOMAIN]
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitsMapbox Free 50k map loads 100k MAU 50k geocodes / Starter $50/mo 100k loads $0.50/1k after + $0.75/1k geocode / Growth $300/mo 500k / OSM Nominatim Free self-host $0 / OSM public $0 rate-limited / Google Maps Platform $200 credit/mo ~28k loads then Maps $7/1k Geocoding $5/1k Places Detail $17/1k Autocomplete $2.83/1k / Esri Free 2M tiles $0
Transactional Email API (Booking Confirmations & Reminders)
Sending transactional email (receipts, resets, alerts) and sometimes marketing mail. Deliverability matters more than features here.Pricing & free-tier limitsResend Free 100/day 3000/mo 1 domain / Pro $20/mo 50k $0.0004/email over (extra 50k $20) / Scale $90/mo 300k / AWS SES Free 3000/day if EC2 $0.10/1k else + $0.12/GB attach / SendGrid Free 100/day forever / Essentials $19.95/mo 50k $0.20/1k over Pro $89.95/mo 100k / Postmark Free 100/mo dev / $15/mo 10k $1.80/1k over inbound free / Mailgun Flex Free 100/day trial 3mo / Basic $15/mo 10k
Monitoring / APM / Logging / Error Tracking (Basic)
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 txs 1GB attachments / Team $26/mo 50k errors $0.0006/error over 100k txs $0.0002/tx over / Business $26+/seat Pro 100k errors / Better Stack Free 3GB logs 3d / Starter $24/mo 10GB 7d $2.40/GB over / Logtail $0.50/GB over / Datadog APM Free 14d / Pro $31/host/mo APM + logs $0.10/GB ingested $0.10/GB indexed + $1.70/M events / Grafana Cloud Free 10k series 50GB logs 50GB traces / Pro $29/mo $8/1k metrics + $0.50/GB logs
Automated Backups (DB + Storage Versioning)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Free daily logical 7-day / Pro $25/mo PITR 7-day physical 7-day retention over 2GB $0.03/GB-mo / Neon Free PITR 1-day / Pro PITR 7-day $19/mo Scale 30-day $69/mo / AWS RDS Auto Backup Free PITR 7-day incl / 8-35 day $0.095/GB-mo snapshot cross-region $0.021/GB xfer + copy $0.095/GB-mo / AWS Backup $0.05/GB-mo warm cross $0.02/1k recovery points / pg_dump GitHub Actions Free 2000 mins/mo
CI/CD Pipeline + Code Repository
Where your source code lives and is collaborated on. Non-negotiable for any team or serious project.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Free unlimited public/private repos 500MB packages 2000 Actions mins/mo Linux 500MB storage / Team $4/user/mo 3000 mins + 2GB storage / Enterprise Cloud $21/user/mo 50k mins + 50GB + SAML / Actions extra $0.008/min Linux $0.016 Win $0.08 Mac / GitLab Free 400 mins/mo / Premium $29/user/mo 10k mins / Vercel Auto-deploy incl hosting no extra / CircleCI Free 6k credits/mo ~1k mins Standard $30/mo 30k credits $0.0006/credit over
How this hobby booking checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a hobby booking 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.