Free developer tools resource list
free-for-dev is a massive open-source resource library listing over a thousand SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS services that offer permanent free tiers for software developers, entrepreneurs, and infrastructure engineers to build MVPs and projects with zero capital.
Updates
- September 16, 2026: Stars 131,012 → 137,565.
- August 2, 2026: Stars 123,834 → 131,012.
What you get
- MVP development with zero infrastructure cost: Testing your ideas with real users without paying credit card risk or a fixed monthly server bill.
- Over a thousand categorized services: Cloud hosting, serverless architectures, databases, CDN, authentication, CI/CD, and monitoring tools.
- Only truly free tiers: Temporary 14-day trials are excluded; only platforms offering permanent (Always Free) plans are accepted.
- Community auditing and freshness: A living ecosystem constantly tested by thousands of open-source contributors that clears out defunct services.
- Architectural flexibility: Designing enterprise-grade hybrid infrastructure by combining the free tiers of different cloud providers.
Featured categories and free infrastructures
- Server and Cloud Computing (IaaS/PaaS): Oracle Cloud (Always Free 4-core ARM / 24 GB RAM), Cloudflare Workers, Fly.io, and Render.
- Database and Storage (DBaaS): Supabase (PostgreSQL), Neon (Serverless Postgres), Cloudflare D1/R2, and Upstash (Redis).
- Authentication and Security (Auth & Sec): Clerk, Auth0, Stytch, and Let's Encrypt SSL certificates.
- Continuous Integration and Testing (CI/CD): GitHub Actions (2000 min/month), GitLab CI and Codecov code coverage analysis.
- Observability and Log Management: Grafana Cloud, Better Stack, Sentry (error tracking) and Axiom.
Community rules and free tier criteria
- Real free plan requirement: Only services offering permanent, time-limit-free free usage rights are listed.
- Credit card requirement restriction: Platforms that do not request a credit card during the registration phase or that make a zero-amount charge solely for identity verification are clearly specified.
- Automatic link checking: Every Pull Request sent to the repository is tested for broken links by GitHub Actions bots.
Architectural approach and getting started guide
- Static Frontend and Deployment: React/Next.js application on Vercel or Cloudflare Pages.
- Database Layer: 500 MB free PostgreSQL on Supabase and built-in row-level security (RLS).
- Email and Notifications: 3,000 free transactional emails per month via Resend.
Cost optimization and quota exceedance strategies
- Defining budget and spending limits: Set the spend limit strictly to 0 USD in the platform dashboards.
- Use caching: Reduce API calls by 80% with Cloudflare free CDN by caching static and dynamic assets.
- Database connection pooling: Use PgBouncer or the built-in pooler to avoid hitting connection limits in serverless environments.
If you don't write code
I want to set up a modern cloud infrastructure consisting entirely of free services for a new web startup. Can you explain a zero-cost architecture plan and setup steps that combine the most popular free providers from the free-for-dev list (hosting, database, authentication, and email service) without exceeding quota limits?
Repository: https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev. Follow the official instructions in the README of this repository for setup and execution.
Before starting, check which OS we are on and if the necessary tools (e.g., Python, Node.js, Git, Docker) are installed. Install any missing ones step-by-step according to this system.
Create a new, empty folder to work in. Do not touch any files outside this folder and do not delete anything. Tell me what you are going to do in one sentence before running each command.
Tell me what I should see on the screen at the end of each step. If an error occurs, I will paste the error message to you exactly as it is, and we will fix it together.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between a free tier and a free trial? Free trials usually expire after 7 to 30 days and require payment. Services on the free-for-dev list, however, are free indefinitely within specific quotas.
- Are there services you can use without entering a credit card? Yes. Many of the services on the list (Supabase, Vercel, Cloudflare, Fly.io) do not require a credit card during registration.
- What happens when the free quotas are reached? If a spending limit has been set, the service temporarily rejects requests (HTTP 429 or 503), but no charges are made to your card.
- Are these services sufficient for large-scale projects? They are more than enough for an MVP, early users, and medium-scale traffic; once the product starts generating revenue, you can upgrade to paid plans on the same platforms with a single click.
Related dictionary terms
Links
TreScout did not build this tool · we found it in GitHub trends and wrote it up. This page describes the repository as of 2026-06-27: The star count and our text belong to that day, the repository may have changed since. Check the repository link for the current state. The introductory text was prepared with AI from the repository's own documentation, and this page was machine-translated from the Turkish original · the Turkish version prevails.