5 years ago, there were a lot of free options to hosting your code. You could get a domain, and even some insights, all for free. They would have a built-in IDE to program your code, and even allow you to share your code with others. However, today, these programs are dwindling.
Around a year ago, a massive program called "Replit" decided to close the doors to free hosting. They had hundred's of thousands of users, and were hosting thousands of programs. You could have as many websites as you want with a domain like "yourproject.yourusername.repl.co," and they also had a major community, but that didn't stop them from removing all of that, and limiting free users with 3 projects, and no hosting.
While at first that seemed like just a business making a bad decision, it happened again, 3 days ago. Hosting service "Glitch.com" announced that on July 8th, 2025, they are going to be shutting down there services as well. While Replit's decision came more as a shock, people had seen this coming. The "featured project of the week" board stopped being updated. The customer service was becoming slower, and the regular posts and community banter wasn't coming.
The differences between Replit and Glitch weren't all evident. While Glitch is just giving up on hosting projects, Replit made it so you have to pay to host. However, they both still had the same service: allowing you to host a project, and get a domain for that project, without ever needing a credit card number.
While Replit and Glitch didn't share there reasons for closing there doors, I am speculating that the costs outweigh the goods. Both Replit and Glitch had premium-tier account options, the amount of money that was coming in from those products wasn't enough for the pay.
So, what is the future going to look like? Glitch and Replit were some of the few options that allowed you to do this. I think that the IDE + Community + Free Hosting products are going to slowly go away, 1 by 1.
Got any thoughts? Do you disagree? I'm happy to hear your opinions.
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