free-for.dev: Free Developer Services List
/free-for-dev
free-for.dev is worth bookmarking if you're provisioning cloud or DevOps infrastructure and want free-tier limits laid out side by side instead of ten pricing-page tabs. The value is in the specifics: GB counts, request ceilings, exact instance types, not vague 'free plan available' claims. Skip it if you want self-hosted recommendations, since the README rules those out, or a general free-tools list instead of one scoped to infra.
The challenge of finding free developer services
Free tiers for cloud, DevOps, and infrastructure services are scattered across hundreds of vendor pricing pages, and vendors change or retire those tiers without much notice. free-for.dev exists because tracking that shifting landscape by hand takes real, repeated effort: checking whether a given free plan is genuinely a free tier and not a 14-day trial, or whether a cloud provider still offers the same quota it did last year. The README frames the project's reason for existing around that exact gap. It pulls this information into one place, filtered for the infrastructure-focused SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS offerings that system administrators and DevOps practitioners actually reach for.
What free-for.dev offers
free-for.dev is a curated, single-page list of SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS offerings that include a free tier, maintained on GitHub by ripienaar. Entries are grouped under category headings such as major cloud providers, cloud management tooling, source code hosting, and APIs, data, and ML services. Each entry notes the actual free-tier limit rather than just linking out to a pricing page.
Who this list is for
free-for.dev is aimed at people provisioning infrastructure, not general app developers browsing for a free logo maker. If you're a sysadmin, a DevOps engineer, or a solo founder trying to stand up a project on someone else's free compute, storage, or CI minutes before spending real money, this list saves a round of checking ten vendor pricing pages by hand. It's less useful if you want self-hosted alternatives you run yourself, since the README rules those out entirely.
Categories of free services listed
- โMajor Cloud Providers covers free-tier compute, storage, and serverless limits for Google Cloud Platform, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, Cloudflare, and Zoho, down to numbers like AWS Lambda's 1 million free requests a month.
- โCloud management solutions lists infrastructure tooling with a free plan, including Pulumi, scalr.com, Cloud 66, and deployment.io, for teams deploying without paying for orchestration first.
- โSource Code Repos compares free private and public repo hosting across GitHub, gitlab.com, Bitbucket, Codeberg, GitGud, and smaller options like pijul.com and the GNU Savannah forges.
- โAPIs, Data, and ML groups free-tier API and data services, including entries like Abstract API, Apify, and Arize AI, each with its request or model-count cap spelled out.
- โIndividual entries are annotated with the actual free-tier ceiling (request counts, storage GB, compute hours) instead of a bare link out to the vendor's pricing page.
- โThe table of contents runs well past these four sections into further infrastructure and DevOps-adjacent categories.
Strengths
- โMany entries are specific: exact quotas (requests per day, GB stored, CPU hours) instead of a vague 'free plan available'.
- โThe eligibility bar is real. Free tier only, not trials, and at least a year long if it's time-bucketed, so entries aren't marketing trials in disguise.
- โMany contributors have fed pull requests into the list per the README, spreading the work of tracking vendor pricing pages beyond one person.
- โSecurity is part of the inclusion criteria, not an afterthought: the README rejects services that paywall TLS.
- โThe category structure (cloud providers, cloud management, source repos, APIs/data/ML, and more) makes it easy to jump to the slice you need instead of scrolling one long list.
Scope and exclusion criteria
- โณSelf-hosted software is excluded by policy: the README states the list is only for as-a-Service offerings, not tools you install and run yourself.
- โณGitHub lists no license on the repo, so the reuse permissions you'd normally check before forking a code project don't clearly apply here.
- โณFree tiers change on the vendor's schedule, not the list's. The README relies on 1,600+ contributors sending pull requests to catch that drift, so an entry can lag behind what a provider currently offers.
- โณInclusion is opinionated by the maintainer's own admission. A legitimate free-tier service outside the infrastructure and DevOps scope, or one that restricts TLS to paid plans, gets turned away regardless of how good it is.
- โณEntry depth varies. Some list exact quotas down to requests per minute; others are a one-line description, so how much detail you get depends on which service you look up.
Similar resources for free offerings
Common questions about free-for.dev
free-for.dev lists SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS offerings with free tiers, organized under categories like major cloud providers, cloud management tooling, source code hosting, and APIs, data, and ML services.
free-for.dev requires an actual free tier, not a free trial. The README states a service is only eligible if it offers a free tier rather than a time-limited trial.
Per the README, a time-bucketed free tier must last at least a year to qualify for inclusion in free-for.dev; there's no stated minimum for tiers that aren't time-limited at all.
free-for.dev does not include self-hosted software. The README limits scope to as-a-Service offerings, so self-hosted alternatives belong on a different list, such as awesome-selfhosted.
free-for.dev has drawn contributions from more than 1,600 people through pull requests, reviews, and ideas, per the README. The repository's maintainer makes the final, admittedly opinionated call on what gets accepted.
free-for.dev's README says it evaluates free tiers from a security angle too: SSO gating is acceptable, but a service that restricts TLS to paid-only plans is not accepted onto the list.
Best use cases
- โขScoping a side project's infrastructure before spending anything: checking Cloudflare Workers' 100k daily requests or Google Cloud's e2-micro instance against what a prototype actually needs.
- โขComparing free-tier CI/CD and source hosting options (GitHub, gitlab.com, Bitbucket, Codeberg) before picking where a new open-source repo lives.
- โขFinding a free-tier API or ML service for a hobby project using the APIs, Data, and ML section instead of testing five vendors' pricing pages by hand.
- โขChecking one major cloud provider's free allowances against another's before choosing where to deploy: entries list numbers like AWS's 25GB DynamoDB or Azure's 1 million monthly Functions requests side by side.
Related repositories
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