How I Deploy Full-Stack Apps for Free in 2026
Side projects shouldn't cost money until they make money. Here's the full free stack I use for every new project — real infrastructure, not toy hosting.
Frontend: Vercel
Vercel is still the easiest way to deploy React, Next.js, Svelte, or any static site. Connect your GitHub repo, push to main, it deploys. Every PR gets a preview URL automatically.
Free tier limits: 100GB bandwidth/month, 100 deployments/day. More than enough for side projects.
Backend: Railway
Railway gives you real servers (not lambdas), real persistent storage, and a sane CLI. Deploy a Node.js/Python/Go/Rust backend with a single railway up.
Free tier: $5 credit/month — enough to run a small app 24/7.
Database: Neon (serverless Postgres)
Neon is serverless Postgres that scales to zero when not in use. Free tier includes 0.5GB storage and 190 compute hours/month. It's real Postgres — no vendor-specific SQL.
# Connect like normal Postgres
postgresql://user:pass@ep-xxx.us-east-1.aws.neon.tech/dbname
Auth: Clerk
10,000 monthly active users free. Pre-built sign-in/sign-up UI components. Social logins (Google, GitHub, Apple) in minutes. Webhooks for user events. The days of rolling your own auth are over.
Storage: Cloudflare R2
S3-compatible object storage with zero egress fees. That's the big one — AWS charges you every time someone downloads a file. Cloudflare doesn't. Free tier: 10GB storage, 10M read operations/month.
The complete free stack
| Layer | Service | Free Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend | Vercel | 100GB bandwidth |
| Backend | Railway | $5 credit/month |
| Database | Neon | 0.5GB Postgres |
| Auth | Clerk | 10k MAU |
| Storage | Cloudflare R2 | 10GB, no egress |
| Domain | Cloudflare | Free DNS |
Total monthly cost to run a real full-stack app: $0.
Scale up only when you have users who justify the cost. That's the right order.
Building something? Follow for more practical deployment guides.
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