So, you’ve finally finished that Node.js app. It runs perfectly on localhost:3000. Now comes the part everyone dreads: actually putting it on the internet without spending thirty bucks a month on a project that might only get ten hits from your mom and a couple of friends. Finding free Node JS hosting used to be simple. You’d just throw it on Heroku, and you were done. But the world changed. Heroku killed their free tier back in 2022, and honestly, the landscape has been a chaotic mess ever since.
Most lists you find online are outdated. They mention services that went belly-up years ago or "free trials" that require a credit card and charge you the second you forget to delete a test database. It's annoying.
If you’re looking for a place to host a bot, a portfolio, or a small API, you need to know exactly where the "gotchas" are. Because trust me, there is always a catch.
The Heroku-Shaped Hole in the Market
When Heroku pulled the plug on free dynos, it felt like a betrayal to an entire generation of bootcamp grads. For a long time, there wasn't a clear winner to take its place. We all scrambled. Some people went to Fly.io, others tried Railway, but even those platforms have tightened their belts significantly.
Why? Because hosting Node.js is expensive. Unlike static site hosting (like GitHub Pages), Node requires a persistent server process. It needs RAM. It needs CPU cycles. Most importantly, it needs to stay "awake" to respond to requests. When a company gives that away for free, they are literally burning money to acquire you as a future customer.
Render: The New Default for Beginners?
Render is probably the closest thing we have to the old Heroku experience. It’s clean. It links to your GitHub. You push code, it deploys. Simple.
Their free tier is decent, but let's talk about the "spin-up" problem. If your app hasn't had a visitor in a while, Render spins it down to zero. When someone finally clicks your link, they’re going to sit there for 30 seconds staring at a white screen while the server wakes up. It feels like 1998. It sucks for user experience, but for a personal project where you just need a live URL, it’s a fair trade-off.
They give you 512MB of RAM, which is actually plenty for a standard Express app. Just don't try to do heavy image processing or run a massive Discord bot on it. It’ll crash. Hard.
The Quota Reality
Render's free tier isn't infinite. You get 750 hours of running time per month. Math check: there are roughly 720 to 744 hours in a month. So, technically, one app can stay up 24/7 if it never spins down, but Render forces the spin-down after 15 minutes of inactivity. Also, they have a bandwidth limit of 100GB. If your app suddenly goes viral on Reddit, your free site is going to go dark pretty fast.
Vercel and the Serverless Loophole
Vercel is famous for Next.js, but a lot of people don't realize you can use it for free Node JS hosting if you're willing to adapt to the serverless model. This is a huge distinction.
In a traditional server, your app is "always on." With Vercel, your code is sliced into tiny functions that only run when someone hits a specific route.
- Pros: It’s fast. Like, insanely fast. No "waking up" delays like Render.
- Cons: You can’t use WebSockets. If you’re building a real-time chat app with Socket.io, Vercel will not work for you. Serverless functions don't keep a persistent connection open.
I’ve seen developers spend days trying to force a stateful app into Vercel only to realize they’re fighting the architecture. If you have a REST API that just talks to a database? Vercel is king. If you’re building a Discord bot or a live poker game? Look elsewhere.
Railway and the "Trial" Trap
Railway used to be the darling of the community. They had a great free tier. Now, it’s more of a "free trial" that gives you a $5 credit or a certain amount of execution time. Once that's gone, it's gone.
I still recommend it for one specific reason: the developer experience is the best in the industry. Their CLI is magic. You type railway up, and your code is live. But if you're looking for "forever free," Railway might break your heart once that initial credit evaporates. It’s basically a gateway drug to their $5/month plan.
The "Hard Mode" Options: Oracle Cloud and Google Cloud
If you’re feeling brave and don't mind a UI that looks like it was designed by a committee of enterprise accountants, the big cloud providers have "Always Free" tiers.
Oracle Cloud is the dark horse here. Their "Always Free" ARM Ampere instances are ridiculous. We’re talking 4 OCPUs and 24GB of RAM. For free. It’s better than most people’s paid VPS.
But—and this is a massive "but"—getting an account is notoriously difficult. Their fraud detection is aggressive. I've had friends try to sign up with legitimate credit cards and get rejected instantly with no explanation. If you can get in, it’s the best free Node JS hosting on the planet. If you can't, you're just another person shouting into the void of their support forums.
Google Cloud (GCP) offers an e2-micro instance for free in specific US regions. It’s tiny. It has about 1GB of RAM, and the CPU is weak. But it’s a real VM. You get a dedicated IP. You can install Linux, Docker, Node, and whatever else you want. It’s "real" hosting, but you have to manage the security updates and the OS yourself. No hand-holding here.
Don't Forget the Database
Hosting your Node.js code is only half the battle. Your app probably needs a database. If you use Render, they give you a free PostgreSQL database, but they delete it after 90 days on the free tier. That's a nightmare. You'll wake up one day and your data is just... gone.
For databases, you're better off uncoupling them from your host:
- MongoDB Atlas: Their free tier is solid and has been around forever.
- Supabase: Incredible for PostgreSQL.
- PlanetScale: Used to be the go-to for MySQL, but they recently removed their free tier. Avoid the old tutorials recommending them.
- Neon: This is the current favorite for serverless Postgres.
Common Myths About Free Hosting
"I can run a production-ready business on a free tier." No. You can't. Free tiers are for development, prototyping, and showing off to recruiters. As soon as you have more than 50 active users, the limitations will start to throttle your growth.
Another myth is that "Free means insecure." Actually, platforms like Vercel and Render have better default security (SSL/TLS certificates, DDoS protection) than a poorly configured $5 DigitalOcean droplet managed by a beginner. The security risk isn't the platform; it's usually your code or your leaked .env files.
The Strategy for 2026
If I were starting a project today and wanted to pay $0, here is exactly how I would do it.
First, I’d look at the architecture. Is it a standard API? I’m going to Vercel. It’s too fast and too easy to ignore. The cold-start problem on other platforms is a dealbreaker for professional-looking portfolios.
If I need it to stay awake—maybe for a cron job or a bot—I’m going to Koyeb. They are one of the newer players that still offer a functional free "nano" instance. It’s small, but it doesn't have the same aggressive sleep cycles as Render.
Third, if I'm a "power user," I'm spending an afternoon trying to get into Oracle Cloud. It’s a headache, but the payoff of a 24GB RAM server for free is basically the "holy grail" of the hobbyist dev world.
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Why "Free" is Sometimes Expensive
Think about your time. If you spend 10 hours trying to circumvent a 512MB RAM limit by optimizing code that doesn't need to be optimized, you've just "spent" hundreds of dollars of your time to save $5.
Sometimes, the best free Node JS hosting is actually just paying the five bucks. It buys you peace of mind. It buys you a database that doesn't delete itself. It buys you a server that doesn't go to sleep.
But, I get it. Sometimes you just want to build things for the sake of building.
Real-World Action Steps
To get your app live right now without a credit card, follow this sequence:
- Audit your app: Does it use WebSockets or long-running processes? If yes, ignore Vercel/Netlify.
- Choose Render for the fastest setup if you don't mind the 30-second "wake up" delay.
- Sign up for Neon.tech for your database. Do not use the built-in database on your hosting provider if it has an expiration date.
- Set up UptimeRobot. Use their free tier to ping your Render URL every 14 minutes. This used to keep apps awake, but most providers have caught on. It’s still worth a shot to keep the cache warm.
- Use a CDN. Put Cloudflare in front of whatever you choose. It saves you bandwidth (which is often capped) and adds a layer of protection.
The "Golden Age" of free hosting is over, but the "Bronze Age" is still pretty functional if you know where the landmines are buried. Keep your dependencies light, keep your logs clean, and always, always have a backup of your data. No one is coming to save your database if a free provider decides to pivot their business model tomorrow.