Portfolio — 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.
Static Hosting / Edge Hosting 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 exec hrs, 100 deploys/day / Pro $20/seat/mo + $40/100GB bw overage + $0.15/GB build / Enterprise custom $2500+/mo - SLA 99.99%, SSO / Cloudflare Pages Free: unmetered bw, 500 builds/mo / Netlify Free 100GB bw, 300 build mins / Render Free 100GB bw, Starter $7/mo 500GB bw
Domain / DNS Management
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free: $0 - 1 domain unlimited queries, 50 domains max / Pro $20/mo - 50 domains, WAF incl / Business $200/mo - 100 domains, SLA 100% / Enterprise $5000+/mo custom - unlimited domains, 24/7 / Registrar: Cloudflare $9.19/yr .com / Route53 $0.50/hosted zone/mo + $0.40/M queries + $12/yr .com / Namecheap $12.98/yr .com / DNSimple $6/mo 5 domains + $0.30/domain over
CDN / Edge Delivery Network
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: $0 - unmetered DDoS, unlimited bw, 3 page rules / Pro $20/mo - 20 rules, WAF, image opt / Business $200/mo - 50 rules, SLA 6mo logs / Enterprise $2000+/mo - 100% SLA custom edge / BunnyCDN $1/mo min + $0.01/GB NA/EU, $0.03/GB Asia, 500GB=$5 / Fastly $50/mo min - $0.12/GB over, $0.028/10k req / CloudFront Free Tier 1TB 12mo then $0.085/GB + $0.0075/10k req
SSL / TLS Certificate & 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: $0 - 90-day certs, unlimited, wildcard via DNS-01 / Cloudflare Universal SSL Free $0 auto-renew included / ZeroSSL Free: 3x 90-day free, then $10/mo unlimited / DigiCert Basic OV $248/yr single, $0 reissue / Secure Site Pro $699/yr OV + SAN / AWS ACM Public Free $0 with AWS, Private CA $400/mo per CA + $0.75/cert / DigiCert EV $500/yr
Object Storage for Media Assets
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, zero egress free / Paid $0.015/GB-mo + $4.50/M Class A, $0.36/M Class B, $0 egress / Supabase Free 1GB storage, 2GB bw / Pro $25/mo - 100GB storage, $0.021/GB over / S3 Free 5GB 12mo then $0.023/GB-mo + $0.09/GB egress + $0.005/1k PUT / Backblaze B2 Free 10GB, $0 egress via CF, then $0.006/GB-mo + $0.01/GB egress
CI/CD Pipeline Automation
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Actions Free: 2000 mins/mo Linux, 500MB storage / Team $4/user/mo - 3000 mins incl, over $0.008/min Linux, $0.016 Win, $0.08 macOS / Enterprise $21/user/mo - 50k mins / Vercel Built-in CI Free - unlimited auto deploys on git / CircleCI Free 6000 mins/mo / Performance $30/mo - 25k credits, $0.00006/credit over / Buildkite Free 1 self-hosted agent
Source Code Repository 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 limitsGitHub Free: unlimited public/private repos, 500MB Packages, unlimited collaborators / Team $4/user/mo - 2GB Packages, required reviewers, CODEOWNERS / Enterprise Cloud $21/user/mo - SLA, SAML SSO, audit log 1yr, 50k Actions mins / GitLab Free 5 users, 400 CI mins / Premium $29/user/mo - 10k CI mins / Bitbucket Free 5 users 50 build mins / Data Center $3k/yr 25 users
Error Tracking / Frontend Monitoring
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/mo, 1k session replays, 10k attachments, 1 user / Team $26/mo - 50k errors, 500 replays, over $0.0006/error, $0.0001/replay / Business $99/mo - 100k errors, 1k replays, SSO / Enterprise custom $1000+/mo - 500k+ errors, custom retention / LogRocket Free 1k sessions/mo / Bugsnag Lite $35/mo 50k errors $0.0005 over
Contact Form Submission API
Interactive assessments, quizzes, or forms that capture structured input from users.Pricing & free-tier limitsFormspree Free: 50 submissions/mo / Gold $10/mo 1k subs, 10 forms / Platinum $40/mo unlimited / Formsubmit.co Unlimited Free - no limits, captcha incl / Getform Free 100 subs/mo / Growth $12/mo 5k subs, 30 forms / Typeform Basic $25/mo 100 responses/mo, $0.10/response over / Jotform Bronze $34/mo 1k subs $0.02 over / Tally Free 100 responses
Web Analytics Infrastructure
Understands your users and supports them. Drives product decisions and retention.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Web Analytics Free: $0 unlimited pageviews, cookieless / Google Analytics 4 Free unlimited, 14mo retention / Umami Cloud Free 3 sites, 10k events/mo / $20/mo 100k events / Plausible Growth $9/mo 10k pageviews $0.001/pv over, $19/mo 100k pv / Simple Analytics $19/mo 100k pv / PostHog Cloud Free 1M events/mo / Growth $0.000248/event after / Mixpanel Growth $28/mo 50k events $0.28/1k over
Automated Backups / Deploy Rollbacks
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 limitsVercel Deploy History Hobby Free: 14d history, instant rollback free / Pro $20/seat/mo - unlimited history, 1yr retention / Enterprise custom - 3yr retention, 99.99% rollback SLA, SSO / Git history free forever / Backblaze B2 Versioning $0.006/GB-mo + $0.005/10k lifecycle / AWS Backup $0.05/GB-mo warm, $0.01/GB restore / S3 Versioning $0.023/GB-mo / Veeam Community Free 10 VMs, Enterprise $1500/yr/socket
How this hobby portfolio checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a hobby portfolio 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.