What’s the cheapest way to host a small Python weather service?

PythonAnywhere is worth checking out for a beginner-friendly setup. Its free plan can work well for small personal Python projects, although you’ll want to review its limits around scheduled jobs, outbound requests, and always-on web apps before committing.

A serverless function such as AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, or Cloudflare Workers could be a very inexpensive fit. You’d add a small API endpoint around your existing weather logic, and you’d generally only pay when it’s called. For a personal project with light traffic, the free tiers may be enough.

You may not need it running every second. If the weather data only needs to refresh periodically, use a scheduled task or cron job to fetch and cache the results. Keep your current logic, then expose it through a small API rather than rebuilding the whole project. Container-based services are another option later, but they may add unnecessary complexity right now.

A low-cost VPS is probably the simplest option if you want a normal machine where you can run arbitrary Python scripts. Small VPS plans are often around $5 per month, and that should be plenty for a weather service. You could run the app with a lightweight web server and keep it available continuously.