Stop Paying for Hosting: The Best Free Tier Platforms for Your Personal Website

• Varun Bhandari • 3 min read
Personal Branding Web Development Free Resources Students

Introduction

Whether you are a student building a portfolio, a developer testing a side project, or just someone who wants a personal blog, one thing is true: you shouldn’t have to pay to share your ideas.

Many people think they need to buy expensive hosting plans from GoDaddy or Bluehost just to get a simple website online. The truth? The best hosting platforms in the world often have “forever free” tiers that are perfect for personal use.

In this series, we are going to explore how to run your personal websites completely for free. Today, we’ll look at where you can host them.

1. For Portfolios & Blogs (Static Sites)

If your website is just HTML, CSS, and images (like a resume site, a landing page, or a blog), you should never pay for hosting. These are called “static sites,” and they are the easiest to host for free.

GitHub Pages

If you are already keeping your code on GitHub, this is the most natural choice.

  • Best For: Developers, students, and anyone who wants their site to live right next to their code.
  • Why use it: It’s completely free, unlimited, and gives you a cool username.github.io domain automatically.

Netlify

Netlify is incredibly user-friendly. It connects to your Git provider and updates your site every time you save your code.

  • Best For: Portfolios and landing pages.
  • Why use it: It has a “Drag and Drop” feature. You can literally drag a folder from your computer into your browser, and boom—it’s online.

Vercel

Vercel is known for being blazing fast. It’s built by the team behind Next.js but works great for any website.

  • Best For: React apps, modern personal sites, and anyone who cares about speed.
  • Why use it: It creates a live preview link for every change you make, so you can see your edits before the world does.

2. For Apps & Bots (Dynamic Sites)

Sometimes you need more than just a static page. Maybe you built a Discord bot, a Python script that runs daily, or a simple web app that needs a server. These platforms let you run your code 24/7 for free.

Render

Render is one of the easiest places to run code for free. It’s a great alternative to platforms that used to be free (like Heroku).

  • Best For: Running a Node.js API, a Python script, or a small web service.
  • Why use it: It’s simple to set up and offers a generous free tier for web services and databases.

Oracle Cloud “Always Free”

This is a bit of a hidden gem. While big cloud providers like AWS usually only give you 12 months for free, Oracle has an “Always Free” tier that is surprisingly powerful.

  • Best For: Hosting a Minecraft server, a VPN, or a heavier application.
  • Why use it: They give you very generous resources (RAM and CPU) that are powerful enough to run multiple small apps at once.

Fly.io

Fly.io is great if you use Docker. It lets you package your app and run it anywhere.

  • Best For: Small apps that need to start up quickly.
  • Why use it: They have a free allowance that is perfect for side projects that don’t have thousands of users yet.

3. Where to Store Data

If your personal app needs to remember things (like a guestbook or a todo list), you’ll need a database.

  • Supabase: Think of this as an open-source alternative to Firebase. It gives you a database and user login features for free.
  • MongoDB Atlas: If you prefer storing data as documents (JSON-style) rather than tables, this is the industry standard with a great free sandbox.

What’s Next?

You now know that you don’t need a budget to start building. You just need to pick the right platform for your project.

  • Building a portfolio? Use GitHub Pages or Netlify.
  • Running a Python bot? Try Render.
  • Need a serious server? Check out Oracle Cloud.

In the next posts of this series, we will stop talking and start building. I will show you step-by-step how to deploy your first site to these platforms in minutes.