Given the recent news about Heroku bringing an end to free dynos and PostgreSQL databases, what other free platforms can I use to host Django (Python) powered web applications for free.
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Services which come closest to Heroku's convenience with free tiers are Fly and Render. Render seems to offer Postgres on a free plan. Another option is Railway which AFAICT doesn't have a free tier, but basic usage is quite cheap.
Check out this list for more services with free tiers (not just PaaS like Heroku): github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev
Bear in mind that free databases on Render are deleted after 90 days. That's not 90 days of inactivity, just 90 days after creation. They say it's a temporary measure and the are going to change it in the future (which I hope for), but for now it's not really a viable alternative for Heroku.
Good point! So it may be better to look at external DBaaS providers. For Postgres/relational databases there's aforementioned CockroachDB, and some others like PlanetScale, ElephantSQL, and YugabyteDB (Managed).
Supabase is vanilla postgres and very generous free tier
Thanks for the tip. I didn't consider Supabase for their managed database but I will check it out.
I don't consider Supabase as a Heroku-equivalent replacement, since it supports only short-lived database / edge functions and triggers. Heroku and the likes can run a “traditional”, persistent application server.
Damn, thanks for the tip! 👌🏻
AFAICT = As far as I can tell
Because it took me longer that it should have to figure that out.
good tips
can confirm Supabase is incredible.
It ticks all the boxes
There is also a python client library for use with Django (or you can connect to it the same way you would any other PostgreSQL db since it's just vanilla pg under the hood)
Thank you for letting me know this.
You could try Vercel.com. It supports Node.js, Python, Go, Ruby. And you can add your own preferred language if you want. It is very similar to Heroku. You could follow the link below to setup and deploy Django to Vercel.
devmaesters.com/blog/15
Vercel is very solid
I've been working on my own cloud platform since 2 years ago because none cloud services (even heroku) is good enough to me. It has a free option (1GB storage) for everybody and it support Django and/or other languages.
signed up, but there is an error setting up ssl
also can you update rust or allow access to rustup?
thanks
That SSL error means the static files path aren't adjusted properly in NginX. I should write docs for that. Fire up an email if you need help to solve that.
Rust can be installed with SSH/without sudo: webinstall.dev/rustlang/
ah ok, thanks!
and nope, had already tried that, but rust is already installed, and rustup isn't available.
Agree! Supabase is 🔥
Supabase is indeed a fantastic choice! It provides a simple interface for working with Postgres database, and the free tier makes it an accessible option for developers of all skill levels ⚡️
Supabase ftw
⚡️⚡️⚡️
Sounds interesting. I would look into it. Thanks a lot.
By browsing this GitHub repository github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev, I found out that this web hosting Deta offers free hosting service and unlimited applications & database. However, at the present time, it supports only Node.js and Python with micro-frameworks such as Express, Bottle.py, Flask, FastAPI etc. I did not try it yet. It is people from Germany who are building this Deta platform.
Deta is nice, but you need to specifically design your app around their platform, like their serverless containers (Micros) and NoSQL database (Base). So Django and Postgres from the original question are nonstarters.
I just want to give some clue for people who want a free alternative to Heroku, not just to host Django and Postgres.
Talking about Deta Micros, it just two lines of code, that is it.
The rest is the regular Python language and framework.
For Deta NoSQL database, there are only 6 methods to interact with the database.
Data entry in Deta Base is JavaScript object called "document" like in many other NoSQL databases.
Hey, David.
Specifically for Django, check out appliku.com/.
Builds are super fast for Django.
PostgreSQL, Redis.
A whole year of free hosting with AWS Free tier. As far as I know, GCP also offers a free tier.
It works with any cloud provider, so you can pick Hetzner later and save an insane amount of money compared to AWS, DO, and others.
I started working on Appliku 3 years ago and posted the story here dev.to/kostjapalovic/tired-of-depl....
Thank you. I would look into it.
The question that you should not overlook:
I think the problem is the business model free and "Pedos, Crypto and Nazis"
That sucks especially for students who owed heroku to have a simple way to show their work to the world
I understand the rush to ask this question, but this ignores the structural issue which is the dark side of the internet:
Pedos, Crypto and Nazis
Every free tier offering, every free CI service, every free cloud service, every free storage situation, ... is being targeted by people highly motivated to let the free tier offering do their super illegal things, super morally répréhensible things and super wasteful "proof of work" "get rich quick" bitcoin shit.
So your alternative which is free today might well take the same decision tomorrow.
The other important question is "how do people offering free stuff make money in the long run?".
There is no way around this question and it's especially difficult if you also have to waste a lot of resources fighting pedos, crypto and Nazis.
You have a real point here. Fighting illegal content is a problem.
At Qoddi we solved it by a strict scoring using anti-fraud API + by requesting a credit card on file to use our free tier along with automated and human moderation.
It's not perfect but we think free tier are very important for two types of people:
1/ future paying users that want to try Qoddi before using paid ressources,
2/ Students and people that wants to learn code and don't want to pay for non-production apps.
I think being able to provide a free tier for those two types of users is very important.
It costs money sure, but we provide ressources that are in line with those two usages: limited amount of RAM, shared CPU and no custom domains. If you need more you probably have a production app and our first size costs only $6 a month.
Offering a free tier is cheaper than spending a lot on Google Adwords for users that will not be able to test our service before moving prodution ressources to us, in my opinion it's worth it and we don't have any plan to suspend or remove our free plan in the future.
Alex.
You could use Netlify which will create a static site?
answers.netlify.com/t/can-i-deploy...
If you're looking to host python apps quick and easy, I'd suggest replit.com for that. If you would like a more secure and powerful environment in terms of uptime, I'd suggest qovery.com for putting your app on AWS and hosting it in the cloud
Thanks for the shout-out @allobrox !
For those asking - yes Supabase is just Postgres, and you can connect directly using the pg connection string, so it works perfectly with all of your existing postgres tools and ORMs
For a database, Supabase is a great alternative with a generous free tier, it has a 7 day suspension in case of inactivity (the project can be re-enabled manually in their dashboard). For other backend services I don't really know anything.