9 Best Node.js Hosting Providers for Small Projects & Side Apps

Heroku [1] ended its free dynos on November 28, 2022, and the small Node apps that lived on them either moved or started paying [2]. The cheapest Heroku option now is the $5 Eco dyno, which sleeps after 30 minutes without traffic.

On February 6, 2026, Heroku also moved to a sustaining engineering model focused on stability, security, reliability and support. Card-paying customers kept the same service and prices, but new customers can no longer sign Enterprise contracts [3].

For a side app, the first thing to know about any host is what it does with your process when nobody is using it.

Does Your App Need to Stay Awake?

Every host here can serve a simple request-and-response app. They differ in what they do between requests.

Apps That Can Sleep

A portfolio, a webhook relay or a light API behind a hobby front end can live with a slow first request. These apps suit a free tier that spins down or a function platform that starts code only when a request arrives.

The trade is a slower first visit. Someone who arrives after an idle hour may have to wait out a cold start, which is fine for a demo and harder on a real user.

Apps That Must Stay Running

A Discord or Telegram bot, a WebSocket server, a job queue or a scheduler needs a process that keeps running between requests. If the platform stops it, the bot drops offline and the job never fires.

These apps need a paid instance that stays on. The smallest ones at Heroku, Render [4], DigitalOcean [5] and Railway [6] cost $5 to $7 a month.

1. Heroku (Awake on Basic)

Because the Eco dyno sleeps, an app that has to stay awake on Heroku needs the $7 Basic dyno. A small Postgres database on the Essential-0 plan adds $5 a month.

Heroku’s deploy-from-git workflow and add-on marketplace set the pattern later platforms copied. Heroku is still one of the easiest ways to get from a repository to a live address, with the app and database in one dashboard.

The worry is where Heroku is headed. A new project on a platform in sustaining engineering should start with a plan for moving if the app outgrows it.

2. Render (Free Tier Sleeps at 15 Minutes)

Render’s free web service needs no card and costs nothing. It spins down after 15 minutes without inbound traffic and takes about a minute to wake.

That delay rules out bots on the free tier, and free services also lack SSH, persistent disks and one-off jobs. A Starter instance at $7 a month, with 512 MB of RAM and half a CPU, keeps the process running.

3. Vercel (No Standing Process)

A Node API on Vercel [7] runs as functions that start on each request, so there is no standing server to keep awake and no place for a process that must keep running.

For a Next.js front end with API routes, Vercel gives the smoothest free setup of the nine, with a fresh deployment on every commit and 1 million free function invocations a month.

The free Hobby plan also includes 4 hours of active CPU time and 100 GB of fast data transfer each month, and it is for non-commercial personal use only. Vercel counts ads, payments, affiliate-first sites and paid client work as commercial, so a side project that sells anything needs the $20 Pro plan.

4. Fly.io (Stops When Idle)

Fly.io [8] runs your app as a small virtual machine in a region you pick, close to your users. The machine can stop itself when idle and is billed by the second while it runs.

A stopped machine costs only $0.15 per GB of root filesystem for 30 days. New organizations get a trial of 2 machine hours or 7 days, whichever ends first, and apps stop unless a card is added. The smallest machine has 256 MB of memory, which is tight for a Node app with many dependencies.

5. DigitalOcean (Awake From $5)

DigitalOcean has no free option for a running Node process. App Platform’s three free apps are for static sites only, and the cheapest Node container costs $5 a month for one shared vCPU and 512 MiB of RAM. That container stays running, and a development database adds $7 a month.

A project can start on App Platform, where DigitalOcean handles builds and deploys, and later move to a Droplet on the same account when it needs full server control. Prices are flat and monthly.

6. GreenGeeks (Not Stated)

GreenGeeks does not say whether a Node process stays running, only that persistent backends work “where technically compatible.”

Node.js runs on Pro or Premium. With GreenGeeks’ Node.js hosting [9], the app runs in the same shared account as any site already there, beside a MySQL database and email, for one flat 12-month price.

Its terms say “Customers may not run IRC, bots or clients,” which rules out hosting a Discord or Telegram bot there.

7. Railway (Awake While Credit Lasts)

Railway keeps a service running while your usage credit covers it. Its Free plan includes $1 of usage a month, with each service capped at 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB of memory.

The bill follows what the app uses, charged by the second at about $10 per GB of memory and about $20 per vCPU a month. A stopped service costs nothing. Hobby costs $5 a month with $5 of usage included.

The Free plan’s $1 will not keep a service up all month. One service running at 0.5 GB uses about $5 of memory on its own, so Hobby covers roughly one small always-on app.

8. AWS (Nothing to Keep Awake)

On AWS [10] a small Node API usually runs on Lambda, which starts your code per request and has nothing to keep awake. Lambda’s free allowance covers 1 million requests and 400,000 GB-seconds each month, and a webhook handler or light API can stay inside it while traffic is small.

Setup is the heaviest of the nine, with permissions, an API gateway and billing alarms to configure. A new account gets $100 in credits at signup and can earn up to $100 more. That free-plan account closes after six months, or sooner if the credits run out, unless you upgrade.

9. Google Cloud (Scales to Zero)

Cloud Run [11] scales a containerized Node app to zero when traffic stops, so the first request after an idle spell meets a cold start. On request-based billing, the free tier covers 2 million requests, 180,000 vCPU-seconds and 360,000 GiB-seconds every month. That allowance has no end date, and a light hobby app can cost nothing for as long as it runs.

Getting there takes more setup than a platform that deploys straight from git. Google Cloud needs a Dockerfile or buildpack and a billing account with a card on file, and new customers get $300 in free credits to start.

A Year of One Small App

Price one always-on app plus a small database for 12 months. Heroku Basic with Essential-0 comes to $144, as does a DigitalOcean container with a development database. Render Starter is $84 before any paid database.

Railway Hobby is about $60 if usage stays inside the included $5, an estimate that rises with traffic. The function platforms can cost nothing, as long as the app is allowed to sleep.

What to Recheck in Six Months

Free tiers have changed often since 2022. Check Heroku’s Eco and Basic prices and how long Render’s free service now waits before it sleeps. If the project now earns money, reread Vercel’s fair-use page, last updated September 14, 2026.

Compare Fly.io’s rates with your real usage and see what Railway’s credit still covers. Put the GreenGeeks renewal date in your calendar, and note when you opened any AWS free-plan account, because it closes six months later.

If any of that changes the math, go back to the stay-awake question and move to the cheapest host that answers it the way your app needs.

Sources

1. https://www.heroku.com/
2. https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/25/heroku-announces-plans-to-eliminate-free-plans-blaming-fraud-and-abuse/
3. https://www.theregister.com/off-prem/2026/02/09/salesforce-puts-heroku-out-to-paasture/4102079
4. https://render.com/
5. https://www.digitalocean.com/
6. https://railway.com/
7. https://vercel.com/
8. https://fly.io/
9. https://www.greengeeks.com/nodejs-hosting/
10. https://aws.amazon.com/
11. https://cloud.google.com/run

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