Free-tier scenario
Free Docker hosting: credit limits
A free container can mean a durable allowance, a monthly credit, or a trial with a fixed end date. Separate those states before checking sleep, storage, build, network, and paid escape limits.
Standing answer
Use a free container offer for a demo, portfolio service, or interruptible job only after its sleep, storage, build, network, and expiry rules fit. A trial or signup credit is temporary access, not a durable free plan, so keep the first paid month beside the free result.
Compare current free offers
16 provider offers, with the limits that matter
Start with the limit your app is most likely to hit. A large allowance is not useful if the service sleeps, the trial expires, or the paid step is unpredictable. Unknown details stay marked as unclear instead of being treated as free or unlimited.
Checked against provider pages on .
| Provider | Free offer | First limit to check | Paid option |
|---|---|---|---|
| RailwayFree plan after trialView offerCompare plans | Sleep behavior unclear30-day $5 trial, then perpetual Free with $1 monthly non-rollover creditNo card requiredSome details unclear | If App Sleeping is mandatory, an outbound-idle service sleeps after more than 10 minutes. Otherwise a 512 MB always-on service exhausts $1 in about 6 days. | Hobby: $5/month |
| RenderFree web serviceView offerCompare plans | Sleeps after 15 minutesWeb service is perpetual; free Postgres expires after 30 days.No card required | An otherwise idle web service sleeps after 15 minutes. | Starter web service: $7/month |
| Fly.ioFree trialView offerCompare plans | Sleeps after 5 minutes2 VM-hours or 7 days, whichever arrives firstNo card required | An always-on container reaches the 2 total VM-hour limit. | Pay As You Go: price depends on usage |
| KoyebFree InstanceView offerCompare plans | Sleeps after 60 minutesperpetualCard required | An idle container sleeps after 60 minutes; an active container is constrained by 0.1 vCPU. | Eco micro: $2.68/month |
| NorthflankSandboxView offerCompare plans | Does not sleepperpetual SandboxCard required | The third service exceeds the two-service Sandbox cap. | Pay-as-you-go nf-compute-20: $5.40/month |
| ZeaburHosted Dev trialView offerCompare plans | Does not sleepFree self-hosted control plane is perpetual; hosted Dev trial is 14 days.No card required | A hosted container reaches the 14-day trial boundary. Free includes control of one self-owned server but not its infrastructure. | Dev: $5/month |
| Clever CloudSignup creditsView offerCompare plans | Sleep behavior unclearSignup credit exists, but amount and expiry are unpublished.No card requiredSome details unclear | Credit exhaustion is the likely category, but no numeric threshold is published. | Consumption pricing: price depends on usage |
| Oracle CloudAlways Free computeView offerCompare plans | Does not sleepAlways Free resources are perpetual; trial credit is $300 for 30 days.Card required | For a quiet container host, idle reclamation risk arrives after seven days below all published thresholds. | Pay As You Go: price depends on usage |
| Google CloudFree Tier and $300 Free TrialView offerCompare plans | Does not sleepAlways Free allocation is perpetual; $300 trial credit expires after 90 days.Card required | The 1 GB monthly outbound allowance is exceeded by a 10 GB reference workload. | Paid billing account: price depends on usage |
| Amazon Web ServicesAWS Free PlanView offerCompare plans | Does not sleepFree Plan lasts up to 6 months with $100 signup credit and up to $100 earnable credit.Card required | The fixed six-month deadline arrives even if credit remains. | Paid Plan: price depends on usage |
| Microsoft AzureAzure free accountView offerCompare plans | Does not sleep$200 credit expires after 30 days; selected services remain free for 12 months after upgrade.Card required | The 30-day credit deadline arrives even if credit remains. | Pay as you go: price depends on usage |
| Back4AppFree ContainerView offerCompare plans | Sleep behavior unclearperpetualNo card requiredSome details unclear | A 512 MB reference container cannot fit in the 256 MB Free shape. | Shared Container: $5/month |
| Akamai Cloud$100 promotional creditView offerCompare plans | Does not sleepCredits expire during a specified trial period, but the current offer does not publish the duration.Card requiredSome details unclear | The trial-period deadline is likely to arrive before a $5 Nanode consumes $100, but the current duration is unpublished. | Nanode 1 GB: $5/month |
| Civo$250 free creditView offerCompare plans | Does not sleepVendor conflict: 31 calendar days versus end of the following month.Card requiredSome details unclear | The expiry clock arrives before a $0.00744 per hour xSmall instance consumes $250. | xSmall Compute: $0.01/hour |
| VultrCampaign-dependent promotional creditView offerCompare plans | Does not sleepCampaign-dependent credit is valid for up to 30 days.Card requiredSome details unclear | Day 30 is the only campaign-independent numeric boundary. | Cloud Compute: price depends on usage |
| Kamatera30-day free trialView offerCompare plans | Does not sleep$100 credit expires after 30 days.Card required | The 30-day deadline arrives before one $4 Basic server consumes $100. | Basic: $4/month |
24 familiar names that do not qualify as a current free offer
| Provider | Why it is not listed above | Official source |
|---|---|---|
| Heroku | Free dynos were withdrawn on 2022-11-28. Container Registry support on paid dynos does not create a current free Docker offer. | Check source |
| Vercel | Hobby provides frontend and function runtimes. The loaded sources do not prove user Dockerfile or OCI image deployment. | Check source |
| Netlify | Free deploys static output and functions. The loaded sources do not prove user Dockerfile or OCI image deployment. | Check source |
| Platform.sh | The current offer resolves to Upsun. It is not counted as a separate current product. | Check source |
| Alibaba Cloud | The row is a product-dependent trial catalog. It does not identify a currently available container product or Linux VM trial that can satisfy the Docker predicate. | Check source |
| IBM Cloud | The generic Lite-services row does not identify a Dockerfile, OCI image, or administrable Linux VM runtime. | Check source |
| Cloudflare | Workers Free is an edge isolate runtime. The represented offer does not prove that Cloudflare Containers usage is included. | Check source |
| Cloudflare | Pages Free deploys static output and optional functions, not a user container image. | Check source |
| Cloudflare | R2 is object storage and does not execute containers. | Check source |
| Deno | Deno Deploy is a Deno application runtime. The loaded sources do not prove user Dockerfile or OCI image deployment. | Check source |
| Glitch | Project hosting shut down on 2025-07-08. | Check source |
| PythonAnywhere | Beginner is a restricted Python application runtime, not a user Dockerfile, OCI image, or Linux VM offer. | Check source |
| Replit | Starter publishes one app, but the loaded plan source does not prove user Dockerfile or OCI image deployment. | Check source |
| Supabase | The represented free row is managed Postgres and adjacent backend services, not a Docker host. | Check source |
| Neon | The represented free row is serverless Postgres and does not run user containers. | Check source |
| Firebase | Spark Hosting serves static content. It does not run a user Dockerfile or OCI image. | Check source |
| GitHub | GitHub Pages publishes static sites and does not run containers. | Check source |
| Adaptable | No qualifying vendor page loaded, so current Docker capability and offer status are unknown. | Source link not available |
| Leapcell | Leapcell documents building source into a provider-managed Docker image, but the loaded source does not prove that a user can supply a Dockerfile or OCI image. | Check source |
| Sevalla | The represented free offer is static site hosting. The dataset does not carry a free application-container row. | Check source |
| DigitalOcean | App Platform supports paid container services, but the represented recurring free offer covers static apps only. | Check source |
| Qovery | Qovery can deploy container registries or Helm, but workloads run in the buyer's separately billed cloud account. The trial does not prove free runtime infrastructure. | Check source |
| Cloud 66 | Free includes a container deployment control plane and build minutes, but the server underneath is separately billable. | Check source |
| Upsun | Upsun builds provider-defined application containers from supported runtime configuration. The loaded current sources do not prove a user Dockerfile or OCI image deployment path. | Check source |
Working comparison
Match the offer to your workload
| Scenario | Free-tier fit | Failure to test |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio demo | Good when sleep is acceptable | Cold wake and temporary build limits |
| Webhook receiver | Only if always-reachable allowance exists | Sleep drops time-sensitive calls |
| Scheduled batch | Good when run duration fits | Credit exhaustion and timeout |
| Production API | Usually a paid workload | Quota, support, availability, surprise migration |
Decision test
What changes the answer
- 01Confirm whether the offer is recurring, trial-only, or a monthly credit.
- 02Test wake latency and idle shutdown against the real request pattern.
- 03Keep state outside ephemeral filesystems.
- 04Calculate the first paid month before committing to the platform.
Shareable result receipt
Fixed for this page: the same formula, assumptions and sources every visitor sees.
Use a free container offer for a demo, portfolio service, or interruptible job only after its sleep, storage, build, network, and expiry rules fit. A trial or signup credit is temporary access, not a durable free plan, so keep the first paid month beside the free result.
Formula
First paid month = compute after credit + database + persistent storage + egress + required support
Assumptions
- No uptime guarantee
- No negotiated credit
Explicit unknowns
- Future offer continuity
- Account eligibility
- Capacity and quota at runtime
Sources and freshness
- Railway pricing retrieved 2026-07-25