Recommended Tools

A generous free tier, a global edge, and static hosting plus backend logic in one account. New projects start on Workers, which serves static files directly; existing Pages sites stay supported.

Pay only when you outgrow the free request and build limits.

The smoothest deploy experience for Next.js, with a preview URL on every push.

The Hobby tier is free; Pro starts when you need team features or more usage.

A simple, long-standing host for static sites and serverless functions.

When you need a real server or container, not just edge functions.

Render has a free tier whose services sleep after 15 minutes idle; Fly.io's smallest machines are cheap but not free.

Postgres plus auth, storage, and APIs on one free project, so a small product needs little else.

A free project pauses when idle; the paid tier keeps it warm and adds capacity.

Serverless Postgres that scales to zero, with database branching for safe testing.

Now part of Databricks, still run as its own product with its own free plan.

A ground-up rewrite of SQLite that runs embedded in your app, offline, or in the browser, and syncs to Turso Cloud, with a roomy free tier.

SQLite (D1) and S3-compatible object storage (R2) that pair with Cloudflare hosting, with no egress fees on R2.

A Postgres extension, so your vectors live next to your data; Supabase turns it on with a dashboard click, and on Neon it is one SQL line.

An open-source vector database you can self-host for free or run on a free managed tier.

A managed vector database with a free starter tier when you want zero operations.

Open-source auth you host yourself, with plugins for most databases and sign-in providers; the Auth.js team itself points new projects here.

Now maintained by the Better Auth team and receiving security fixes rather than new features. Existing apps can stay put, and a migration guide covers the move.

Email, social, and magic-link sign-in that comes free with a Supabase project.

Polished, drop-in auth with a user-management UI, free up to a monthly retained-user cap.

A user counts only when they come back after the day they sign up, so signups that never return are free. Paid tiers start past the cap.

When a customer demands enterprise single sign-on, this adds SAML without a rebuild.

Free for early volume on some features; priced for enterprise.

Queues and scheduled triggers that pair with Cloudflare Workers, in the same account.

Durable functions, retries, and scheduling with a generous free tier and good local development.

Open-source background jobs built for long-running AI tasks; self-host or use the free cloud tier.

Error and performance monitoring with full stack traces, free for small volume.

Uptime checks, on-call alerts, and log management in one free starter tier.

Log storage and querying with a roomy free monthly allowance.

Simple uptime checks and alerts, free for a long list of monitors.

The free plan is for personal, non-commercial use under its terms.

A free web application firewall and denial-of-service protection in front of your app.

Free dependency alerts on any repository, and free secret scanning on public ones; private repositories need the paid Secret Protection add-on.

One place to manage secrets across environments instead of scattering .env files.

Free for individuals and small teams; paid for larger organizations.

Scans your code and dependencies for known vulnerabilities, with a free developer tier.

The default for payments and subscriptions, with no monthly fee and a per-transaction cut.

You handle sales tax and VAT yourself, or add a tax service on top.

Stripe's own merchant of record for digital products: it collects and remits global sales tax and handles fraud, disputes, and buyer support.

Built by the Lemon Squeezy team after Stripe acquired them; Lemon Squeezy still runs, but new work goes into Managed Payments.

Another merchant of record aimed at software, handling tax and compliance.

A global CDN, caching, and image delivery on the free plan.

A cheap, fast, pay-as-you-go CDN when you want a dedicated one.

CI/CD that lives in your repo, free for public projects and with a monthly minute allowance for private ones.

Built-in pipelines if your code lives on GitLab, with free CI minutes.

Developer-friendly transactional email with a clean API and a free monthly allowance.

A long-trusted transactional sender known for fast, reliable delivery, now part of ActiveCampaign.

A free developer plan with a low monthly send cap that does not expire; paid plans are inexpensive and dependable.

The cheapest option at real volume, in exchange for more setup.

Privacy-first traffic analytics with no cookies, free on any plan.

Product analytics, session replay, and feature flags with a large free monthly allowance.

Open-source, privacy-friendly analytics: self-host it for free, or use the hosted cloud's free tier.

Simple, privacy-friendly hosted analytics when you would rather not self-host.