Stack on a Budget
A curated list of online services with generous free tiers for developers on tight budgets.
- Stars
- 12.5k
- Forks
- 601
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- —
- Last update
- 8 days ago
- Type
- Curated list
What it is
This is a directory of hosted services that offer free tiers, covering areas like app hosting, databases, CI/CD, emailing, and error reporting. Each entry describes what the free tier includes so developers can judge whether it suits a small project. The README's stated goal is to help people run side projects without paying for hosting every month.
- Find a free database host for a prototype by browsing the database hosting section
- Pick a free app hosting provider for a small web app
- Compare free CI/CD options such as GitHub Actions or CircleCI
- Look up free email sending services for transactional messages
Great for
- Developers building side projects on a budget
- Students learning to deploy small apps without a credit card budget
- Anyone comparing free tiers across hosting, database, and monitoring services
Not ideal for
- Teams needing guaranteed production capacity, since free tiers can change or have limits the README does not detail in this excerpt
- People looking for a single tool to install, because this is a list of separate external services
How to get it
- 1
Read it online
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/255kb/stack-on-a-budget - 2
Run it
- Open the repository on GitHub
- Browse the Table of Contents to find a category you need
- Open the linked page for that category and read the free tier descriptions
- Check the provider's own site for current pricing before relying on a free tier
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Read CONTRIBUTING.md to understand how entries are selected and described
- Compare several providers in the same category before committing to one
- Use the category pages directly, since the README links each service to its section
Downloads
Strengths
- Organized by category with a table of contents linking to each section
- Entries aim to describe free tier limits so you can compare without signing up everywhere
- Maintained openly with a contribution guide for adding or correcting services
Trade-offs
- It is a list, not software, so the details can go out of date as providers change their plans
- The README excerpt provided does not show the full set of entries or the limits for each service
- Sponsored by Mockoon, which is noted at the top of the README
How it compares
| Project | Stars | Type | Level | Updated | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stack-on-a-budget (this) | 12.5k | Curated list | beginner | 8 days ago | Developers building side projects on a budget |
| public-apis | 495k | Curated list | beginner | 5 days ago | Developers looking for a third-party API to add to a side project |
| awesome-oss-alternatives | 19.8k | Curated list | beginner | 1.2 years ago | Developers looking for open-source replacements for paid SaaS tools in a specific category |
| awesome-cpp | 74.2k | Curated list | beginner | 6 days ago | C++ developers looking for a library for a specific task |
| github-cheat-sheet | 60.1k | Curated list | beginner | 2.6 years ago | Developers who already use Git and GitHub daily and want to discover lesser-known features |
| dokku | 32.2k | App | intermediate | 5 days ago | Developers who want Heroku-style deployment on a server they control |
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.