Best free hosting for web apps with a database (2026)
Eight free plans that give a web app a real database, ranked by how far they take a small app before you must pay, with the exact limits, the conditions that catch people out, and worked examples of what the quotas mean.
Key Takeaways
- Supabase Free is the most complete free backend. Postgres, authentication for 50,000 monthly active users and file storage, but projects pause after a week of inactivity and there are no automatic backups.
- Neon Free is the best free Postgres on its own. 100 projects, scale to zero and 100 compute-unit-hours per project each month, paired with a host for your frontend and functions.
- Cloudflare has the most generous free traffic. 100,000 Worker requests a day and a free D1 database, if you are happy with SQLite and Cloudflare’s runtime.
- Some free plans are for demos only. Render’s free Postgres expires after 30 days, Railway’s Free plan includes $1 of usage a month, and Floot’s free hosting is a $3 one-time allowance.
- Free plans rarely include backups. If anyone depends on the data, export it on a schedule yourself, or move to a paid plan before launch.
Quick-Start Prioritization Framework
| Rank | Option | Database | Best for | Main catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Supabase Free | Postgres, 500 MB | Apps needing database, auth and storage free | Pauses after 1 week inactive; no backups |
| 2 | Neon Free | Postgres, 1 GB per project | A free Postgres behind any frontend host | Compute stops if monthly hours run out |
| 3 | Cloudflare Workers + D1 | SQLite, 5 GB | High-traffic free apps | Not Postgres; 10 ms CPU per request |
| 4 | Firebase Spark | Firestore (NoSQL), 1 GiB | Realtime and mobile-style apps | No Cloud Functions on the free plan |
| 5 | Netlify Free | Netlify Database (Postgres) | Site, functions and database on one platform | 300 credits a month, hard limit |
| 6 | Floot Free | Postgres per app | Building and trying an app from an AI chat | $3 hosting allowance is one-time |
| 7 | Render Free | Postgres, 1 GB | Short demos of a traditional server | Database expires after 30 days |
| 8 | Railway Free | Postgres as a service | Testing a deploy before paying | $1 of usage a month |
Free static hosting is everywhere. Free hosting for an app that saves data is rarer, and the differences between plans hide in the fine print: a database that pauses after a week, one that expires after 30 days, a quota that resets daily, or terms that rule out commercial use. This list ranks eight free options for one job: running a small web app with a database, such as a side project, a prototype for customers or a tool for a club, for as long as possible without paying. Each entry gives the limits from the provider’s own pricing page on 2026-11-11, what they mean in practice, and what to watch. When we translate a quota into page views or hours, the arithmetic is ours and the assumptions are stated.
What “free” really means for a database app
Before the list, the four kinds of limit you will meet. Most free plans use two or three of them.
Quotas
Hard numbers: database size, requests per day, compute hours per month, monthly active users. These are easy to compare and usually generous for small apps.
Pausing, sleeping and expiry
The ones that cause outages. A paused database needs a manual restart; a sleeping server makes the first visitor wait; an expired database is deleted. These matter more than quotas for anything real users touch.
Missing features
Free plans often lack automatic backups, custom domains, server functions or support. Check the one you need most.
Terms of use
Some free plans are for personal or non-commercial use. Vercel, for example, describes its Hobby plan that way. If you charge money, read the terms first.
1. Supabase Free
Best for: apps that need a Postgres database, user sign-in and file storage, all free, with a separate static or frontend host.
What you get
A 500 MB Postgres database per project, 50,000 monthly active users for authentication, 1 GB of file storage and 5 GB of egress, with up to 2 active projects. Supabase Auth supports email and password, magic links, social providers and more, which saves you adding a separate sign-in service.
What to watch
Free projects are paused after one week of inactivity, which means a quiet side project can be offline when someone finally visits. There are no automatic backups on the free plan; Supabase suggests exporting regularly with its CLI. Turn on Row Level Security for every table, because the frontend uses a public key.
When you outgrow it
Pro starts at $25 a month, never pauses, and includes daily backups kept for 7 days.
2. Neon Free
Best for: a free serverless Postgres behind a frontend and functions hosted elsewhere.
What you get
Up to 100 projects, each with 100 compute-unit-hours a month, autoscaling up to 2 compute units, 1 GB of storage (20 GB across the account), 5 GB of egress, 10 branches and a 6-hour history window for restores. It needs no card. Compute scales to zero after 5 minutes idle, which is how the hours last.
What the quota means
Our arithmetic: if the database runs at 0.25 compute units while active, 100 CU-hours is 400 hours of active database time a month, about 13 hours a day. Because the database sleeps when idle, a small app with traffic in bursts can stay well inside that.
What to watch
If you use up the hours or the 5 GB of egress, compute is suspended until the next month; going over 1 GB of storage blocks writes. Neon is only the database, so you still need sign-in and a host for the app.
3. Cloudflare Workers + D1
Best for: technical builders who want an app to survive real traffic on a free plan.
What you get
Workers Free allows 100,000 requests a day. D1, Cloudflare’s database, allows 5 million rows read and 100,000 rows written a day, 5 GB of storage in total and up to 10 databases on the free plan.
What the quota means
Our arithmetic: 100,000 requests a day is about 3 million a month. If each page view makes 5 requests to your Worker, that is 20,000 page views a day before you hit the limit.
What to watch
D1 is SQLite, not Postgres, so code and libraries written for Postgres may need adapting. Free Workers get 10 ms of CPU per request, enough for typical API calls but not heavy processing. Sign-in and email come from other services.
4. Firebase Spark
Best for: realtime and mobile-style apps that fit a document database and want Google’s authentication.
What you get
Firestore with 1 GiB stored, 50,000 document reads, 20,000 writes and 20,000 deletes a day, and 10 GiB of egress a month. Authentication for 50,000 monthly active users. Hosting with 10 GB of storage and 360 MB of transfer a day.
What the quota means
Our arithmetic: if each page view reads 25 documents, 50,000 reads a day covers 2,000 page views a day. Read counts add up quickly with lists and dashboards, so design queries to read only what is shown.
What to watch
Cloud Functions are not available on the Spark plan, so any server-side logic (calling a paid API with a secret key, for example) needs the pay-as-you-go Blaze plan. Firestore is a NoSQL database, which is a different model from the SQL most AI tools default to.
5. Netlify Free
Best for: a site or frontend with a few functions and a Postgres database on one platform.
What you get
300 credits a month, custom domains with SSL, unlimited deploy previews, functions, and Netlify Database, a managed Postgres that became generally available in April 2026. Netlify’s docs list 3 databases and 7-day backup retention on the Free plan, which is unusual for a free tier.
What the quota means
Everything draws on the same 300 credits. Our arithmetic using Netlify’s published rates: 20 production deploys at 15 credits each use all 300; so does 30 GB-hours of database compute at 10 credits each, or 15 GB of bandwidth at 20 credits per GB. A real month is a mix of all three.
What to watch
The Free plan is a hard limit with no option to buy more credits. Frequent small deploys, common when an AI agent is iterating, eat credits fast. Sign-in isn’t bundled.
6. Floot Free
Best for: people who want to build and try a full app with a database and logins from ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, or in Floot’s editor, without setting up any services.
What you get
Each app gets its own Postgres database, sign-up and login with email, Google or Microsoft, backend endpoints and hosting, built for you by the AI. The Free plan includes 100 building actions a day, a $3 one-time hosting allowance and 2 mobile builds a month. Publishing is free on every plan, and you can download the database on any plan.
What to watch
The hosting allowance is one-time, not monthly, so Floot Free is a way to build and launch a first version rather than a permanent free host. Custom domains need a paid plan; Pro is $25 a month with $10 of hosting included each month.
7. Render Free
Best for: short demos of an app written as a traditional server.
What you get
750 free instance hours a month per workspace for web services, and one free Postgres database with 1 GB of storage.
What to watch
Free web services spin down after 15 minutes without traffic, so the next visitor waits for a restart. Free Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation, with a 14-day grace period to upgrade before deletion. That makes it unsuitable for anything you want to keep.
8. Railway Free
Best for: trying a deployment, including a database, before committing to a paid plan.
What you get
A free trial with $5 of one-time credit that expires after 30 days, then a Free plan with $1 of usage a month. Databases run as services in the same project as the app.
What to watch
Our arithmetic: at about $10 per GB of RAM per month, $1 covers roughly 0.1 GB of memory running all month, which is too little for an app and a database together. Treat it as a trial; Hobby is $5 a month including $5 of usage.
Side-by-side limits
The headline limits of each free plan as published on 2026-11-11.
| Option | Database size | Traffic or compute | Auth included | Pauses, sleeps or expires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supabase Free | 500 MB | 5 GB egress | Yes, 50,000 MAU | Pauses after 1 week inactive |
| Neon Free | 1 GB per project | 100 CU-hours per project | No | Suspends when hours run out |
| Cloudflare Workers + D1 | 5 GB total | 100,000 requests/day | No | No |
| Firebase Spark | 1 GiB | 50,000 reads/day | Yes, 50,000 MAU | No |
| Netlify Free | Per Netlify docs | 300 credits/month | No | Hard credit limit |
| Floot Free | Per app | $3 one-time hosting | Yes | Allowance is one-time |
| Render Free | 1 GB | 750 instance hours/month | No | Sleeps after 15 min; DB expires after 30 days |
| Railway Free | Usage-based | $1 usage/month | No | Usage credit runs out |
How to choose
Pick by what your app needs most, then check the catch.
You need sign-in and a SQL database, free
Supabase Free with a static frontend host. Keep it active, and export the data on a schedule.
You already have a host and just need Postgres
Neon Free. Use its pooled connection string from serverless functions.
You expect real traffic and can work with SQLite
Cloudflare Workers with D1.
You don’t want to set up services at all
Floot Free to build and launch a first version, accepting that ongoing hosting is paid.
Common mistakes with free database hosting
Free plans work well until one of these happens.
No export, no backup
Most free plans have no automatic backups. Set up a weekly export from the first day real data arrives.
Forgetting the database will pause or expire
Put a reminder in your calendar for expiry dates, and know how to un-pause a project.
Mixing a free database with a far-away host
Choose the same region for the database and your functions, or every query pays a round trip across continents.
Running a business on a non-commercial plan
Read the terms of every free plan you combine, not only the database’s.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free hosting for a web app with a database?
For most small apps, Supabase Free for the database and sign-in, paired with a free frontend host. For a standalone free Postgres, Neon. For the most free traffic, Cloudflare Workers with D1.
Is there free Postgres hosting that doesn’t expire?
Yes. Supabase Free and Neon Free don’t expire, though Supabase pauses projects after a week of inactivity and Neon suspends compute if you use up the month’s hours. Render’s free Postgres does expire after 30 days.
Can I run a commercial app on free hosting?
Some free plans allow it and some don’t. Vercel describes its Hobby plan as for personal, non-commercial use. Read the terms of each service you use.
Do free database plans include backups?
Usually not. Supabase Free has no automatic backups, while Neon Free keeps a 6-hour history window and Netlify lists 7-day backup retention on its Free plan. Export your data yourself on a schedule.
Why does my free app take a long time to load the first time?
Free servers often sleep when idle. Render’s free web services, for example, spin down after 15 minutes without traffic and must start again on the next request.
When should I start paying for hosting?
When real people depend on the data, when you charge money, or when pausing or sleeping would hurt. Those are the points where backups, uptime and commercial terms matter more than saving the monthly fee.
Sources
- Supabase, Pricing, 2026 https://supabase.com/pricing
- Neon, Pricing, 2026 https://neon.com/pricing
- Cloudflare, Workers pricing, 2026 https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/pricing/
- Firebase, Pricing, 2026 https://firebase.google.com/pricing
- Netlify, Credit-based pricing plans, 2026 https://docs.netlify.com/manage/accounts-and-billing/billing/billing-for-credit-based-plans/credit-based-pricing-plans/
- Floot, Pricing, 2026 https://floot.com/en/pricing
- Render, Deploy for free, 2026 https://render.com/docs/free
- Railway, Pricing, 2026 https://railway.com/pricing