What’s a simple managed way to host a Docker container for a side project?

Railway, Heroku, and Fly.io all support fairly direct container deployments. They handle most of the infrastructure for you while letting you keep your application packaged as a normal Docker image. Fly.io in particular has a straightforward command-line setup for small projects.

A basic VPS with Docker preinstalled is another option, although you would still be responsible for updates, firewall rules, backups, and general server security. Managed VPS plans from providers such as DigitalOcean may be closer to $10–$15 per month rather than the lower end of your budget.

You could rent an inexpensive VPS and install a self-hosting control panel such as Coolify. It gives you a more convenient deployment interface for Docker applications and handles some of the setup, but it doesn’t eliminate server maintenance completely. A low-cost VPS provider such as Hetzner can make this approach affordable.

Fly.io could be a good fit. It’s usage-based, and a small instance can cost around $5 per month or less, especially if you allow it to stop when idle. Deployment can be as simple as providing a Dockerfile and a small configuration file, without rewriting your application for a special framework.