free-dev-resources

name	free-dev-resources
description	Recommend free-tier developer services and SaaS tools. Use when choosing free infrastructure, comparing free tiers, setting up side projects, or optimizing costs for startups and indie devs.
domain	development
author	oyi77
license	Apache-2.0
subdomain	software-development
tags	["free-tier","saas","cost-optimization","developer-tools","cloud","side-project"]
version	1.0.0

Overview

Comprehensive reference of free-tier SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS services for developers. Covers cloud providers, CI/CD, code quality, monitoring, auth, CMS, hosting, databases, email, CDN, testing, and security tools. Sourced from the free-for-dev list (https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev).

Capabilities

• Recommend free-tier cloud providers and compute options
• Compare CI/CD free plans across major platforms
• Suggest free code quality and monitoring tools
• Identify free auth, CMS, hosting, and database providers
• Evaluate free email, CDN, testing, and security services
• Match service selection to project requirements and scale

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "free dev resources"

• "Starting a side project or MVP with zero budget"

• "Comparing free tiers before committing to a provider"

• "Recommending tools for bootstrapped startups"

• Starting a side project or MVP with zero budget

• Comparing free tiers before committing to a provider

• Recommending tools for bootstrapped startups

• Optimizing costs for hobby or educational projects

• Setting up dev/staging environments without paid plans

• Building a developer toolkit from scratch

When NOT to Use

• Task is about deployment, not development (use deploy skills)
• Task is about code review, not writing (use review skills)
• You need to understand existing code first (use research skills)
• Task is about testing only (use test skills)
• Requirements are unclear (clarify first)
• Task is trivially simple (single line fix)

Process

# Example: TDD workflow
def test_user_creation():
    user = create_user(name="Alice", email="[e-mail]")
    assert user.name == "Alice"
    assert user.email == "[e-mail]"
    assert user.created_at is not None

def test_user_creation_invalid_email():
    with pytest.raises(ValidationError):
        create_user(name="Alice", email="invalid")
``` / Steps

1. **Identify requirements** -- What category of service is needed (compute, database, auth, etc.)?
2. **Check free tier limits** -- Verify request limits, storage caps, user limits, and duration (always-free vs. time-limited trial).
3. **Evaluate lock-in risk** -- Prefer services with easy migration paths and open standards.
4. **Consider scaling costs** -- What happens when the free tier is exceeded? Are paid plans reasonable?
5. **Verify current status** -- Free tiers change; confirm the service still offers what is documented.

## Key Resources

Curated resources for free-dev-resources.

- Official documentation: Reference for API, CLI, and configuration
- Community templates: Battle-tested patterns from production use
- Monitoring dashboards: Grafana/Datadog templates for observability
- CI/CD integration: GitHub Actions and GitLab CI starter workflows


### Cloud Providers

| Provider | Free Tier Highlights | URL |
|----------|---------------------|-----|
| AWS | EC2 t2.micro 750hrs/mo (12mo), S3 5GB, Lambda 1M requests/mo, DynamoDB 25GB | https://aws.amazon.com/free/ |
| Google Cloud | e2-micro VM, 5GB Cloud Storage, 2M Cloud Functions invocations, Firestore 1GB | https://cloud.google.com/free |
| Azure | B1S VM 750hrs (12mo), 5GB Blob Storage, 1M Functions requests, CosmosDB 25GB | https://azure.microsoft.com/free/ |
| Oracle Cloud |  ARM Ampere A1 cores + 24GB RAM (always-free), 200GB Block Storage, 10GB Object Storage | https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/ |
| Cloudflare | Workers 100k req/day, R2 10GB storage + 10M reads/mo, D1 5M rows, Pages unlimited sites | https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/developer-platform/ |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| GitHub Actions | , /mo (private), unlimited (public) | https://github.com/features/actions |
| GitLab CI |  /mo compute | https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/ |
| CircleCI | , /mo,  jobs concurrent | https://circleci.com/pricing/ |
| Buildkite | Unlimited agents (-hosted), , /mo (hosted) | https://buildkite.com/pricing |
| Travis CI | Unlimited   source | https://www.travis-ci.com/pricing/ |
| Woodpecker CI | Self-hosted, unlimited,  source | https://woodpecker-ci.org/ |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| GitHub | Unlimited public/private repos, , Actions /mo, 500MB Packages | https://github.com/pricing |
| GitLab | Unlimited public/private repos, 5GB storage, 10GB transfer/mo | https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/ |
| Bitbucket |  users,  /mo Pipelines, 1GB storage | https://bitbucket.org/product/pricing |
| Codeberg | Unlimited repos,  source (Gitea-based) | https://codeberg.org/ |
| SourceHut | Unlimited public repos,  private | https://sourcehut.org/pricing/ |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| SonarCloud | Free   source, unlimited analyses | https://www.sonarsource.com/products/sonarcloud/ |
| Codacy | Free   source, 100K LOC private | https://www.codacy.com/pricing |
| DeepSource | Free   source,  private repos | https://deepsource.com/pricing |
| Codecov | Free   source, unlimited coverage reports | https://codecov.io/pricing |
| Snyk |   source tests/mo,  code tests/mo | https://snyk.io/plans/ |
| GitGuardian |  commits scanned/d, unlimited repos ( source) | https://www.gitguardian.com/pricing |
| Codiga | Free   source, supports + languages | https://www.codiga.io/pricing |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| UptimeRobot |  monitors, - intervals | https://uptimerobot.com/pricing/ |
| Freshping |  checks, - intervals | https://www.freshworks.com/website-monitoring/pricing/ |
| Better Uptime |  monitors, - intervals | https://betterstack.com/uptime-pricing |
| Cronitor |  cron monitors | https://cronitor.io/pricing |
| Hetrix Tools |  uptime +  server monitors | https://hetrixtools.com/pricing/ |
| Healthchecks.io |  checks | https://healthchecks.io/pricing/ |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| Auth0 | , MAUs, unlimited social logins | https://auth0.com/pricing |
| Supabase Auth | , MAUs (included  Supabase free) | https://supabase.com/pricing |
| Clerk | , MAUs, pre-built UI components | https://clerk.com/pricing |
| Logto | , MAUs,  source available | https://logto.io/pricing |
| Kinde | , MAUs | https://kinde.com/pricing/ |
| WorkOS | Unlimited users  SSO/SAML | https://workos.com/pricing |
| Stack Auth | Unlimited MAUs ( source, -hosted) | https://stack-auth.com/ |
| Lucia | Open source auth library (-managed) | https://lucia-auth.com/ |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| Contentful |  users, 25K records, 48CDA/content types | https://www.contentful.com/pricing/ |
| Sanity |  users, 100K API CDN requests/mo, 10GB assets | https://www.sanity.io/pricing |
| Strapi | Self-hosted ( source), Cloud:  users, 10K entries | https://strapi.io/pricing |
| Hygraph |  users, 100K API calls/mo | https://hygraph.com/pricing |
| Directus | Self-hosted ( source), unlimited users | https://directus.io/pricing |
| Payload CMS | Fully  source, -hosted | https://payloadcms.com/ |
| Decap CMS | Fully  source (Git-based) | https://decapcms.org/ |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| Vercel | 100GB bandwidth/mo, serverless functions, edge | https://vercel.com/pricing |
| Netlify | 100GB bandwidth/mo,  build /mo | https://www.netlify.com/pricing/ |
| Cloudflare Pages | Unlimited sites, requests, bandwidth | https://pages.cloudflare.com/ |
| GitHub Pages | Unlimited sites, 100GB bandwidth/mo | https://pages.github.com/ |
| Railway | 500hrs  time/mo, $ credits | https://railway.app/pricing |
| Render | Static sites free, web services 750hrs/mo | https://render.com/pricing |
| Fly.io |  shared VMs, 3GB persistent storage | https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/ |
| Deno Deploy | 100K req/day, free KV storage | https://deno.com/deploy/pricing |
| Koyeb |  nano services, 100GB bandwidth | https://www.koyeb.com/pricing |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| Supabase | 500MB Postgres, 1GB file storage, 50K MAUs,  projects | https://supabase.com/pricing |
| PlanetScale | 5GB storage, 1B row reads/mo, 10M row writes/mo | https://planetscale.com/pricing |
| Neon | 512MB Postgres, / compute ( CU), branching | https://neon.tech/pricing |
| Turso |  databases, 9GB total storage, 1B row reads/mo | https://turso.tech/pricing |
| Fauna | 100K reads + 50K writes/mo, 5GB storage | https://fauna.com/pricing |
| MongoDB Atlas | 512MB storage, shared cluster (M0) | https://www.mongodb.com/pricing |
| Upstash Redis | 10K commands/day, 256MB  DB | https://upstash.com/pricing |
| Convex | 1M function calls/mo, 1GB storage, unlimited users | https://convex.dev/pricing |
| TiDB Cloud | 5GB row storage, 5GB columnar, shared cluster | https://www.pingcap.com/tidb-cloud/ |
| CockroachDB | 10GB storage, 50M RUs/mo (serverless) | https://www.cockroachlabs.com/pricing/ |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| Resend | , emails/mo,  emails/day | https://resend.com/pricing |
| SendGrid |  emails/day | https://sendgrid.com/en-us/pricing |
| Mailgun | , emails/mo (first  months), then pay--you-go | https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/ |
| Postmark |  emails/mo (sandbox) | https://postmarkapp.com/pricing |
| Brevo (Sendinblue) |  emails/day, unlimited contacts | https://www.brevo.com/pricing/ |
| Amazon SES | , emails/mo ( EC2) | https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/ |
| Loops | , contacts, , emails/mo | https://loops.so/pricing |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| Cloudflare | Unmetered bandwidth, DDoS protection, SSL | https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/ |
| jsDelivr | Unlimited bandwidth ( source CDN) | https://www.jsdelivr.com/ |
| Statically | Unlimited bandwidth ( source repos) | https://statically.io/ |
| CloudFront | 1TB transfer/mo (12mo), 10M requests/mo | https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/ |
| Fastly | $/mo credit (50GB bandwidth) | https://www.fastly.com/pricing |
| Bunny CDN | $/mo minimum, very low per-GB cost | https://bunny.net/pricing/ |
| UNPKG | Unlimited (npm-based,  source) | https://unpkg.com/ |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| Cypress | Free   source, unlimited local tests | https://www.cypress.io/pricing |
| Playwright | Fully  source, -hosted | https://playwright.dev/ |
| Percy | , snapshots/mo, unlimited reviewers | https://percy.io/pricing |
| Checkly | , API check runs/mo, , browser check runs | https://www.checklyhq.com/pricing/ |
| TestingBot |  minutes/mo, parallel testing | https://testingbot.com/pricing |
| LambdaTest |  mins/mo,  parallel session | https://www.lambdatest.com/pricing |
| BrowserStack |  mins/mo, limited devices | https://www.browserstack.com/pricing |



| Service | Free Tier | URL |
|---------|-----------|-----|
| Lets expected usage
- [ ] No hidden costs (bandwidth overages, per-seat charges)
- [ ] Migration path exists  the service  discontinued
- [ ] Terms of service allow the intended use 
- [ ] Service   a time-limited trial when always-free  needed



 Understand the requirement  existing codebase patterns
 Design the solution  error handling  testability  mind
 Implement incrementally  tests  each change
 Verify against expected outcomes (manual  automated)
 Document usage, edge cases,  integration points
 Review  team before merging to shared branches



| Rationalization | Reality |
|---|---|
|  | Bugs slow you down 10x more. Tests are speed,  overhead. |
|  | Technical debt compounds. Refactor  you go. |
|  | If it    CI, it does  work. Ship proof,  claims. |