With the announcement of the removal of the free tier on Heroku, I, like many others was scrambling for an alternative.
Heroku used to offer free 'Dynos' but now are offering dynos for $7 which are always active or $5 for eco-dynos which go inactive after 30 minutes.
So what are some good alternatives?
I currently use these services and have done for the last 8 months or so. These are great services and are either the same or cheaper.
Digital Ocean
One option I chose for a Node API and React app was using Digital Ocean. I have been using this for the last 8 months and I found it very easy to setup. See my article on setting up an API on digital ocean.
The cost is $5 for a droplet and with the link below you can get a free $200 credit when you sign up to get started https://m.do.co/c/b6731a07428c.
This is actually better value than Heroku because these Droplets don't become inactive after 30 mins and remain active like the Heroku $7 dynos.
AWS S3
Another way I have used is hosting a React app on AWS S3.
A React app is a static page when running 'npm run build' because the file is 1 html file with a minified JavaScript file. These files can be stored on a public S3 bucket.
This costs me a few pennies per month to host the static files.
I used these 2 resources to automatically run build and push to S3 everytime I push my code to GitHub. This uses a GitHub action and a S3 bucket.
- GitHub actions https://github.com/jakejarvis/s3-sync-action
Note: this contains a referral link but I have used this service for 8 months now and I have found it very helpful and good.
I hope these resources will be of a help to someone. Please share your thoughts below and with others if you think they will find it helpful
Top comments (13)
Oracle cloud, Always free tier, I have Ampere server with 4cpu and 24g RAM for 2 years for free.
I use Github pages, works very well for me once it is setup.
That's true, similar to the S3 method by building the minified js files and hosting them
Hostinger is also a great option.
You can get 20% off using this link:
hostinger.co.uk?REFERRALCODE=1LUKE...
Where do you guys host your JS projects?
Had anyone tried using Kubernetes on a personal project? 🫣🫣
Running CapRover on a VPS at Contabo.
I've never heard of this, what the cost like?
Just the price of the VPS.
contabo.com/en/vps/
On vercel app or Google cloud
Great suggestions, is Google cloud cheap?
Is it easy enough to deploy?
I use Vercel for a next js app.
I have used vercel for front end (Angular in my case) and it is free. How I am looking for suggestions for backend api project because azure is expensive.