I'm looking to host my personal projects along with my portfolio website, but I'm unsure about the best platforms to use. I had previously used Render for one of my projects, but after running out of free hours, they suspended all my services, which was frustrating. I need to host about 3 to 4 personal projects, and I have 1 to 2 projects that require both frontend and backend hosting. My preference is to **not spend any money**, but I'm open to low-cost options if necessary. Any recommendations or personal experiences with deployment would be greatly appreciated!
4 Answers
If you're up for a challenge, you could host everything yourself using a reverse proxy. A domain name might only cost around a dollar. Just be prepared for a bit of a learning curve!
I'd recommend using Netlify for your frontend projects, and Railway for your backend. Railway's free tier is much more generous compared to what Render offers. And yeah, the mock JSON approach is smart; many recruiters won't look too closely!
Keep in mind that any free hosting option will eventually reach its limits. That said, if you're looking for budget-friendly solutions, cheaper VPS services like Hetzinger or Digital Ocean could allow you to host all your small projects together.
For hosting your portfolio, GitHub Pages or GitLab Pages are great options—they're both free! For hosting your projects, a VPS is generally the best route, but if that's too complicated, you could try Vercel depending on your tech stack. A clever idea is to use mock JSON data for any backend needs, as most people won't dig deep into your code when reviewing your portfolio.
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