Education — 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
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 bw, 1000 GB-hrs edge funcs, 6k exec hrs, 100 deploys/d / Netlify Free 100GB bw, 300 build mins / Cloudflare Pages Free unlimited bw + 500 builds/mo / Railway Trial $5 credit then $0.000231/vCPU-sec + $0.10/GB egress / Fly.io Free tier ended, PAYG $1.94/vCPU/mo + $0.25/GB RAM + $0.02/GB egress / Vercel Pro $20/seat/mo + $40/100GB bw overage
Database (PostgreSQL)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon Free: 0.5GB storage, 1 project, 100 compute hrs, 10 branches, 3GB transfer / Supabase Free: 500MB DB, 1GB storage, 50k MAU, 50k edge func invocations, 2GB bw, 7d PITR / Neon Launch $19/mo - 10GB storage, 100hrs compute, 1M queries / Supabase Pro $25/mo - 8GB DB, 100GB storage, 100k MAU, 7d PITR, $0.125/GB DB overage + $0.021/GB storage over + $0.0135/MAU over 100k
File / Object Storage
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 storage, 10M Class A ops, 10M Class B, zero egress / Backblaze B2 Free 10GB + $0.006/GB-mo after, $0.01/GB egress (free via CF) / Supabase Storage Free 1GB, then $0.021/GB over / Tigris Free 5GB + $0.02/GB-mo free egress / R2 Standard $0.015/GB-mo + $4.50/M Class A + $0.36/M Class B, free egress / S3 $0.023/GB-mo + $0.09/GB egress
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 incl with project, unlimited providers, $0 / Clerk Free 10k MAU, 1 app, 3 orgs, $0 / Auth.js + Lucia OSS $0 self-host / Clerk Pro $25/mo + 10k MAU incl + extra app $25/mo + $0.02/MAU over 10k / Auth0 Free 7.5k MAU (dev), $0, $0.07/MAU after
Video Hosting & Streaming API
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 bw, 1000 GB-hrs edge funcs, 6k exec hrs, 100 deploys/d / Netlify Free 100GB bw, 300 build mins / Cloudflare Pages Free unlimited bw + 500 builds/mo / Railway Trial $5 credit then $0.000231/vCPU-sec + $0.10/GB egress / Fly.io Free tier ended, PAYG $1.94/vCPU/mo + $0.25/GB RAM + $0.02/GB egress / Vercel Pro $20/seat/mo + $40/100GB bw overage
Transactional Email API
Sending transactional email (receipts, resets, alerts) and sometimes marketing mail. Deliverability matters more than features here.Pricing & free-tier limitsResend Free 100 emails/day, 3000/mo limit, 1 domain / Brevo Free 300 emails/day / SendGrid Free 100/day forever / Mailgun Free trial 100/day 30d / Resend Pro $20/mo 50k emails + 5 domains, $0.0008/email over (0.80/1000) / Amazon SES $0.10/1k emails + $0.12/GB attachments, Free 3k/mo if on EC2
CDN / Edge Delivery
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 bw, global Anycast, 5 WAF custom rules, 3 page rules, DDoS, cache 512MB / Fastly Free $0 + usage + $100 trial credit / Bunny CDN Free trial then $1/mo min / Cloudflare Pro $20/mo 20 WAF rules + image resize 100k/mo + $5/100k over + Argo Smart $5/mo + $0.10/GB / Vercel Edge Free incl with hosting
Secrets Management
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 limitsdotenv + Vercel Env Vars Free $0 incl with hosting / Doppler Free 5 users, 1 project, 100 secrets, 5 tokens / Infisical Free 2 projects, 5 members, E2E / Doppler Team $18/mo 15 users ($7/user/mo over 15), 25 envs, audit logs + $10/user/mo over / Infisical Team $19/user/mo SSO + audit / HashiCorp Vault Cloud Standard $0.24/hr ~$177/mo 25k ops + $0.03/10k ops over / AWS Secrets Manager $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k API calls + KMS $1/key/mo + $0.03/10k reqs / Premium: Vault Enterprise HSM $1.5k+/mo
Repo / Version Control
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, 2000 Actions mins/mo private, 500MB Packages, 120 core-hrs Codespaces / GitLab Free 5 users, 400 CI mins / GitHub Team $4/user/mo 3000 mins + 2GB storage + required reviewers + env protection / GitHub Enterprise Cloud $21/user/mo 50k Actions mins + GHAS $5.75/user/mo Advanced Security (CodeQL, secret scanning) / Enterprise Server $21k/yr 50 seats self-host
Automated Backups
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 limitsNeon PITR Free 7d 1 day interval, branch restore free / Supabase Free daily backups 7d retention + pg_dump cron $0 + R2 $0.015/GB-mo / Neon Free PITR 1h granularity 6h retention / Backblaze B2 + restic $0 software + $0.006/GB-mo storage / Supabase Pro PITR 7d included + 30d $100/mo add-on / Snaplet $50/mo 5GB + $5/GB over
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Controls and protects your APIs — quotas, abuse prevention, and firewalls. Important once you have real traffic or many clients.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free WAF: 5 custom rules, DDoS L3/4/7 unmetered, Bot Fight Mode $0 / Vercel Firewall Hobby Free 50 rules + bypass / Cloudflare Pro $20/mo 20 rules + OWASP managed + Bot mitigation / AWS WAF $5/mo per ACL + $1/mo per rule + $0.60/M requests + Bot Control $10/mo + $1/M
How this hobby education checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a hobby education 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.