awesome-cheap-tiers

💸 A curated list of tools and X-as-a-services that have free or cheap tiers so you can get the most bang for your 💲

Other Related Awesome Lists

• https://github.com/zachflower/awesome-open-source-supporters
• https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev
• https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted

Table of Contents

Planning

Organizing Ideas and Work

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Trello	Free	1 Power-Up, 10MB max, 10 team boards	A configurable kanban-style board
Azure Boards	Free	Up to 5 Developers, unlimited Stakeholders	A scrum / kanban board that comes as part of Azure Devops
Onenote	Free	Up to 5 GB	Microsoft's notekeeping app, part of Office
Evernote	Free	Unlimited notes, no team features	Notekeeping app with organization features
Github Project Boards	Free	No Limits	Kanban-style cross-repo board hosted by Github and included with every Github repo

Team Chat

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Slack	Free	10k Message history, 10 apps, no group calls	An extremely popular IM platform with a large collection of bots and apps that help customize your chat to your workflow
Microsoft Teams	Free	300 Users, 2GB storage / user, no 2FA	Microsoft's IM offering with tight Office integration and a growing app marketplace
Discord	Free	8MB File Upload, 720p screen share	An IM option aimed at gamers, Discord offers excellent channel organization options with no limits to voice channels, screen sharing, or message history. Development / Work focused apps are lacking but are slowly being added

Building

Code Repos

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Azure Repos	Free	Unlimited public and private repos, up to 5 developers	A Git repo that comes as part of Azure Devops
Github	Free	Unlimited public and private repos, up to 3 developers	The definitive place for open source, comes with integrated issue tracking and basic project management
Bitbucket	Free	Unlimited private repos, up to 5 developers	A Git repo that is part of the Atlassian suite
Gitlab	Free	Unlimited private repos and developers, no merge approvals	A private Git repo that comes with integrated issue tracking and chatops

Frameworks

Name	Summary
Xamarin	Open source C# framework for apps that compiles to native Android, iOS, Mac, and UWP with maximal codesharing
Blazor	Open source C# framework for websites that compiles to webassembly
Bootstrap	Open source mobile-first web UI framework

Authentication

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Auth0	Free	7000 active users, 2 social providers	Wraps OAuth options into one management layer for easy integration. Supports most social and enterprise OAuth providers, manages username-password logins for you, and allows customization with serverless rules

Databases

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Azure Table Storage	$0.045 / GB / Month, $0.00036 per 10,000 transactions	No limits	A Key-Value database that scales automatically and stores your data globally
Azure Blob Storage	$0.0184 / GB / Month, various read / write prices	Prices increase after 50 TB / month	A No-SQL database that scales automatically and stores your data globally. Has various automatic-archive options. Cheaper to store in, more expensive to read / write.
Azure Serverless SQL	$0.2609 / core / hr	4 cores, 12GB RAM	A fully-featured SQL database that auto-scales in response to demand and only charges you for your use
mLab	Free	0.5GB storage	A sandbox instance of MongoDB hosted and supported by MongoDB Inc

Email

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Sendgrid	Free	100 / day	Transactional email API with good library support and a matching Marketing email offering
Mailgun	Free	10k emails / month, 100 email address validation / month	Transactional email API with an email validation sister API

Graphics and UX

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Fiverr	$5 and up / design	No Limits	An online marketplace of freelancers providing various services such as graphical and ux design. Most freelancers offer a $5 tier, hence the name "Fiverr"
Figma	Free	2 members, 3 projects, 30 days version history	A browser-based UX tool with easy collaboration and code-exporting for styles

Documentation

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Github Wikis	Free	No Limits	Markdown wiki hosted by Github and included with every Github repo
Read the Docs	Free	Open Source projects only, no private documentation, ad supported	Automatic CI/CD for documentation hosted for free by Read the Docs
GitBook	Free	2 Users, 1 Public space, 1 Private space	Git-enabled documentation editor that makes it easy for non-developers to contribute
Azure Functions OpenAPI / Swagger	Free except Azure Functions pricing	No Limits	Serverless hosting of API endpoint documentation using the popular OpenAPI / Swagger format

Metrics and Logging

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Azure Application Insights	Free	5GB storage / month, 90 days retention	An end-to-end sampled view of user interactions that can be installed in one-click for most Azure resources
Azure Metrics	Free	150 MB / month	Helps capture the exact number of times a certain thing occured in your app / API
Papertrail	Free	50MB / month, 7 days retention	Solarwinds provided aggregated tail logs with automatic filters for non-structured logs
Loggly	Free	200MB / day, 7 days retention, no alerts	Solarwinds provided aggregated structured logs with filters
Logz	Free	3GB / day, 3 days retention, 50 users, no alerts	A hosted ELK stack with Grafana with filters for structured logs

CI / CD

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Azure Pipelines	Free	1 Hosted agent (1800 build minutes / month), 1 Self-Hosted agent	A CI / CD chain that comes as part of Azure Devops
Bitbucket Pipelines	Free	50 build minutes / month	Docker-based CI / CD by Atlassian

SaaS

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Azure Search	Free	50 MB, 3 indexes	AI-Powered search index that integrates easily with SQL and Azure Table Stoarge
Azure Playfab	Free	No professional features	Multiplayer game services in a box, incuding profiles, commerce, and leaderboards
Microsoft Flow	Free	No Limits	A code-free logic flow creator that connects to popular sources so that you can create flows such as "send me an email when a new mailchimp member signs up for my site"
Moosetracks	Free	1k requests / month	API debugger by Iron Moose Development that collects API calls from your app / service for easy visualization and built-in issue analysis

Hosting

IaaS

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Digital Ocean	$5 / month	1GB RAM, 25GB SSD	Developer-focused VM provider with easy DNS setup and one-click-deploy options
Azure Linux VMs	$0.0075 / hr	1GB RAM	Azure VM that can temporarily burst to handle higher loads
Azure Windows VMs	$0.008 / hr	1GB RAM	Azure VM that can temporarily burst to handle higher loads

PaaS

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Azure App Service (Free)	Free	1GB RAM, 1GB Storage, 60 minutes / day	Host your site / service straight out of Visual Studio for free on shared infrastructure
Azure App Service (Shared)	$0.013 / hr	1GB RAM, 1GB Storage, 240 minutes / day	Host your site / service straight out of Visual Studio for cheap on shared infrastructure
Azure App Service (Basic)	$0.075 / hr	1.75GB RAM, 10GB Storage	Host your site / service straight out of Visual Studio on a scalable infrastructure

FaaS

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Azure Functions	Free	1 million executions, 400,000 GB-s	Azure hosted functions that spin up on the fly based on http / timer / queue messages
Iron Functions	Free, Self-Hosted	None	A Docker image that manages running FaaS on your own infrastructure. Supports directly importing AWS Lambdas

Static Sites

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Netlify	Free	1 User, 1 Concurrent Build	A popular globablly-distributed static site host that has built-in CI / CD
Github Pages	Free	1 per Account / Org, 1 per Project, Non-Commercial	A Github hosted static site solution - just push and host. Great for project readmes
Azure Storage Static Site	Free except Azure Storage Pricing	No Limits	Blob stored Azure distributed static site hosting

Scaling up

Status Pages

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Freshstatus	Free	Up to 250 subscribers, no scheduled reports	Status page provided as an offering from the Freshworks suite
Cachet	Self-Host	No Limits	Open source Status page with multi-language and planned downtime features

Marketing

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Sendgrid	Free	2k contacts, 6k emails / month, 1 user	Marketing email platform with email designer and analytics, with a matching Transactional email offering
Mailchimp	Free	7 channels, basic templates, 2k contacts	Marketing email platform with easy email designer, 1 click automations, and landing page creator
Ghost	Self Host	No Limits	A popular open source publishing platform for blogs and journals
Landbot	Free	100 chats / month, 30 logic blocks, basic integrations	A chatbot bot driven landing page that directs users through to what they want to know
GitPitch	Free	Public repos only, no exporting	A git-enabled markdown-powered presentation tool

Finances

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Waveapps	Free for accounting / invoicing / receipts, $20 / month + $4 / person for payroll	No Limits	Invoicing software with a payroll option for both employees and contractors

Invoicing and Subscriptions

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Invoicely	Free	1 User, PayPal only, no Recurring	Estimate and Invoicing tool designed for the web, hosted by ApiLayer
Chargebee	Free	First USD $50k revenue	Subscriptions-as-a-service offering that allows users to manage their credit cards and subscriptions in a hosted page. Has coupon and free-trial features built-in.

Support

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Purechat	Free	Unlimited chat, 3 Users, 1 website	Livechat support chatbot that falls back to email if no one is online to answer a question

Legal Compliance

Name	Pricing	Limits	Summary
Termly	Free	1 Policy	Automatic generator and hoster of Terms of Conditions and Privacy Policy documents
Cookie Consent	Free	No Limits	Open source Cookie Consent banners provided by Osano
Eversign	Free	5 documents / month, 1 user	Legally-binding eSignature platform with Google Drive template importing features hosted by ApiLayer