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KOYEB ALTERNATIVE
Koyeb now needs a card with a $29 hold and starts new accounts on a $29-a-month plan. SnapDeploy's free tier needs neither: 4 containers of 512 MB, 100 running hours a month, 10 deploys a day, built from GitHub or a Docker image and served on HTTPS.
Always-On from $12 a month when a container must never sleep. A $1 Sprint Pack for a single day.
Last verified 28 September 2026 against koyeb.com/pricing, Koyeb's pricing FAQ and instance reference, and SnapDeploy's free-tier docs.
The facts behind the search, from Koyeb's own pages and the acquisition announcement.
Mistral's first acquisition, made to build out its AI cloud. Koyeb's own announcement is titled "Koyeb is joining Mistral AI to build the future of AI infrastructure". For a plain web app that is a change of direction, not a shutdown; existing services keep running.
Koyeb's pricing FAQ now states that a credit card is required to prevent fraud and abuse, with a $29 pre-authorisation that is placed and then cancelled. New accounts default to the Pro plan at $29 a month with $10 of compute included; the FAQ says you can downgrade to Starter at any time. Earlier, on 1 February 2024, the $5.50 monthly credit had already been replaced by a single free instance.
One free web service per organisation: 512 MB RAM, 0.1 vCPU, 2 GB SSD, deployable only in Frankfurt or Washington, D.C. It scales to zero after one hour without traffic, cannot be a worker service, cannot attach a volume and cannot use custom scaling. The free Postgres is limited to 5 compute-hours a month.
Where each one wins is in the table, not the marketing. Koyeb column from koyeb.com; SnapDeploy column from the free-tier docs and the pricing page.
| Item | Koyeb | SnapDeploy |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 1 web service per organisation | 4 containers, 100 container-hours a month, 10 deploys a day; no expiry |
| Free container size | 512 MB / 0.1 vCPU / 2 GB SSD | 512 MB / 0.25 vCPU |
| Credit card | Required, $29 hold; new accounts start on Pro at $29/month | Not required for the free tier |
| Idle behaviour | Free service scales to zero after 1 h; wakes in seconds | Sleeps after 15 min; about 60 s to wake on a browser visit; bots do not wake it |
| Regions | Frankfurt or Washington on free; more on paid, Singapore for Eco | One region, AWS US East, behind Cloudflare |
| Cheapest 24/7 container | Eco Nano, about $1.61/month, 256 MB / 0.1 vCPU, billed per second | Always-On Small, $12/month, 512 MB / 0.25 vCPU; $1 Sprint Pack for 24 hours |
| Worker and cron services | Yes, on paid instances | Web services only today |
| Databases | Free Postgres, 5 compute-hours a month; paid Postgres Small about $29.76/month | Redis from $12; PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, MariaDB from $29; DB Sprint Pack $1 for 12 hours |
| Deploy sources | GitHub, Docker image | GitHub (Dockerfile or generated), public Docker image, docker save tarball |
| GPU | From $0.50/hour (RTX 4000 SFF Ada), per second | Dedicated NVIDIA T4 and A10G subscriptions from $499/month |
| Custom domain with HTTPS | Yes | With Always-On |
| Deploy from an AI assistant | Not offered | MCP connector for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and Gemini CLI |
Keep the Koyeb service running until the new one answers, then switch. Ten minutes for a typical app.
In Koyeb, open the service: the GitHub repository and branch, or the image name, and every environment variable and secret. Copy them somewhere private.
Email or GitHub sign-in, no card. Connecting GitHub during sign-in also links your repositories for deploys.
Pick the repository and branch; set the root directory if the app lives in a subfolder. A Dockerfile is built as written; Node.js, Python, Java, Go, Ruby, PHP and static sites get one generated. For an image deploy, paste the same public image name.
Paste the variables in the container settings; secret-looking values are masked in the dashboard. SnapDeploy injects PORT and detects the listening port; an app that hard-codes Koyeb's default port should read PORT instead.
Keep an external database by URL, or move to a managed add-on. A custom domain comes with Always-On: add it in the dashboard and point an A record at the IP shown there. Switch DNS only after the new URL answers, so nothing goes dark.
An honest list, because a page that only sells does not help you decide.
Koyeb runs in Frankfurt and Washington on the free tier and adds Singapore for Eco instances. SnapDeploy is a single AWS US East region with Cloudflare in front.
Eco Nano at about $1.61 a month for 256 MB is the cheapest 24/7 container in this comparison. SnapDeploy's Always-On starts at $12 for twice the memory.
Koyeb has worker services on paid instances. SnapDeploy runs web services only today, and a free container sleeps when nobody visits.
Koyeb bills GPUs per second from $0.50 an hour and is now part of Mistral's AI cloud. SnapDeploy's GPUs are dedicated monthly subscriptions.
Choose SnapDeploy when the free tier itself is the point: a card-free account, four containers instead of one, a browser-visit wake that keeps hobby projects at $0, a dashboard and an iOS app that do the same things, and an MCP connector so an AI assistant can deploy for you. The state of free hosting page holds the dated table for every platform, including the ones neither of us is.
Koyeb's docs still list one free web service per organisation: 512 MB RAM, 0.1 vCPU, 2 GB SSD, in Frankfurt or Washington only, scaling to zero after an hour without traffic. Since February 2026 a credit card with a $29 pre-authorisation hold is required, and new accounts start on the $29-a-month Pro plan, which can be downgraded to Starter. There is no card-free way in.
Three changes in 2026: Mistral AI agreed to acquire Koyeb on 17 February 2026 and the platform's direction is AI infrastructure; the card-free plan went away the same month and a $29 hold is now required; and the free service is limited to one, in two regions, with no worker services. Developers who used Koyeb for a small card-free web app are the ones searching.
On the free tier, yes: SnapDeploy gives 4 containers, 100 hours a month and 10 deploys a day with no card, against Koyeb's one service behind a card hold. For a container that must run 24/7, Koyeb's Eco Nano at about $1.61 a month for 256 MB is cheaper than SnapDeploy's Always-On Small at $12 for 512 MB. Compare the size you actually need.
Usually. Both build from a GitHub repository or run a public Docker image. Copy the environment variables, deploy, and check the port: SnapDeploy sets a PORT variable and detects the listening port from the build files. A Koyeb worker service has no free equivalent on SnapDeploy, where the free tier runs web services that sleep when idle.
When you need several regions, per-second billing with scale-to-zero on paid instances, background worker services, or GPU inference close to Mistral's models. SnapDeploy runs in one AWS region, bills Always-On per month, and today runs web services only.
No. Sign up with an email address or a GitHub account and deploy on the free tier with no card and no expiry. A card is only needed to buy Always-On, a Sprint Pack or a managed add-on.
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4 containers, 100 hours a month, 10 deploys a day. No credit card, no expiry.
Create Free AccountThe first managed container PaaS to offer a one-time 24-hour Always-On pass under $5. Unlimited deploys + Always-On for one Small (512 MB) container — including WebSockets & real-time apps. No subscription, no auto-renewal. Stack two for 48 hours.
Need a managed database too? DB Sprint Pack — ₹99 / 12h for Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, Mongo, Redis, or RabbitMQ.
