How to host a side project for $10 or less
Let's start with the limit: every option here costs $10 per month or less. Several are free.
Free plans always have boundaries. Watch for daily request limits, credit pools, and rules that exclude commercial projects.
These recommendations fit a new full-stack app. If your project is static, use the static-site guide instead.
Recommended hosts
Netlify
Watch the credit math: deploys cost 15 credits each out of 300.
- Why it fits
- Static sites and frontend apps that deploy from Git and want a generous, mature workflow.
- How deploys work
- Connect the Git repo; pushes build and deploy automatically with previews for every pull request.
- The tradeoff
- The credit system makes bills hard to predict — traffic, deploys, and compute all drain one pool.
Vercel
Personal projects only; commercial use requires Pro at $20/month.
- Why it fits
- Next.js and frontend apps where you want deploys and previews to just work.
- How deploys work
- Connect the Git repo; every push builds and deploys with a preview URL per branch.
- The tradeoff
- Usage pricing past the credit can climb fast with real traffic, especially data transfer.
- The free tier is for non-commercial projects only.
Laravel Cloud
The $5 subscription includes $5 of monthly usage credit; a small app and database that scale to zero can stay inside it.
- Free option
- New Starter subscriptions get their first month free; after that, Starter costs $5/month and includes $5 in monthly usage credit.
- Why it fits
- Laravel teams that want the framework, database, queues, scheduler, cache, and deploy workflow managed as one platform.
- How deploys work
- Connect a Git repository or run cloud ship; Laravel Cloud builds the supported runtime and deploys every push with zero downtime.
- The tradeoff
- The excellent Laravel experience comes from an opinionated runtime, so arbitrary containers and server-level access are out.
We rank providers by deployment ease first, then monthly cost. Commission payments don't affect the rank. If your project is different, answer four questions and get a specific recommendation.