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niuniu
niuniu

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I Built a Full-Stack SaaS for $0 — Here Is My Complete Free Tech Stack in 2026

#ai #opensource #free #productivity

Last month I launched a SaaS product with real users, real traffic, and a real database — and my total hosting bill is $0.00/month.

No trials. No credit card. No "free for 30 days" tricks. Just genuinely free tiers that actually work in production.

Here is every piece of my stack, why I chose it, and the exact code to set it up.

The Free Stack at a Glance

Service What It Does Free Tier Paid Alternative Annual Savings
Vercel Frontend hosting 100GB bandwidth AWS Amplify ($15/mo) $180
Supabase PostgreSQL + Auth 500MB DB, 50K MAU Firebase ($25/mo) $300
Cloudflare CDN + DNS + Workers Unlimited requests Fastly ($50/mo) $600
MonkeyCode AI coding assistant Free with generous quota Cursor ($20/mo) $240
Upstash Redis queue 10K commands/day Redis Cloud ($30/mo) $360

Total savings: $1,680/year

1. Frontend: Vercel (Free Hobby Plan)

Vercel free tier is absurdly generous for personal projects:

  • 100GB bandwidth/month
  • Automatic HTTPS
  • Git-based deployments
  • Serverless functions included

My SaaS serves 500+ daily visitors on the free plan. Not once have I hit the bandwidth limit.

Vs. AWS Amplify: Amplify free tier expires after 12 months. Vercel is permanent.

2. Database: Supabase (Free Plan)

Supabase gives you a full PostgreSQL database with:

  • 500MB storage
  • 50,000 monthly active users
  • Real-time subscriptions
  • Built-in auth (Google, GitHub, email)
  • Row Level Security 
CREATE TABLE todos (
  id UUID DEFAULT gen_random_uuid() PRIMARY KEY,
  user_id UUID REFERENCES auth.users(id),
  title TEXT NOT NULL,
  completed BOOLEAN DEFAULT false,
  created_at TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT now()
);

ALTER TABLE todos ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY;
CREATE POLICY "Users see own todos" ON todos
  FOR ALL USING (auth.uid() = user_id);
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import { createClient } from '@supabase/supabase-js'

const supabase = createClient(
  'https://your-project.supabase.co',
  'your-anon-key'
)

const { data: todos } = await supabase
  .from('todos')
  .select('*')
  .order('created_at', { ascending: false })
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Vs. Firebase: Supabase uses standard PostgreSQL (no vendor lock-in), and the 50K MAU limit beats Firebase Spark plan.

3. CDN and Edge: Cloudflare (Free Plan)

Cloudflare free plan includes:

  • Unlimited CDN bandwidth
  • Free SSL certificates
  • DNS management
  • 100K Workers requests/day
  • DDoS protection 
// Cloudflare Worker: API rate limiter
export default {
  async fetch(request, env) {
    const ip = request.headers.get('CF-Connecting-IP')
    const { value } = await env.RATE_LIMIT.get(ip)

    if (value && parseInt(value) > 100) {
      return new Response('Rate limited', { status: 429 })
    }

    await env.RATE_LIMIT.put(
      ip,
      (parseInt(value || 0) + 1).toString(),
      { expirationTtl: 60 }
    )

    return fetch(request)
  }
}
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4. AI Coding: MonkeyCode (Free)

Most AI coding tools charge $10-20/month:

Tool Price Models Privacy
Cursor $20/mo GPT-4, Claude Cloud
GitHub Copilot $10/mo GPT-4 Cloud
Codeium $10/mo Various Cloud
MonkeyCode Free Multiple Local-first

MonkeyCode (monkeycode-ai.net) is open-source and runs locally. Your code never leaves your machine unless you choose cloud models.

I have been using it for 3 months. The free quota is generous enough for daily development — I have never hit the limit.

5. Queue and Cache: Upstash (Free Tier)

For background jobs and caching:

  • 10,000 Redis commands/day
  • 256MB storage
  • HTTP-based (works in serverless) 
import { Redis } from '@upstash/redis'

const redis = new Redis({
  url: process.env.UPSTASH_REDIS_URL,
  token: process.env.UPSTASH_REDIS_TOKEN,
})

await redis.lpush('jobs', JSON.stringify({
  type: 'send-email',
  to: 'user@example.com',
  template: 'welcome'
}))
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What I Learned

  1. Free tiers are enough — For 90% of indie projects, you will never outgrow them
  2. Vendor lock-in is the real cost — Supabase uses standard PostgreSQL
  3. Local-first tools save money — MonkeyCode running locally means zero API costs
  4. The ecosystem is mature — These power real businesses

Your Turn

What is your free tech stack? Are you using any services I missed? Drop a comment — I am always looking to optimize my $0 setup.

If you found this helpful, check out MonkeyCode — the free, open-source AI coding assistant that replaced my Cursor subscription.

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