Free Docker hosting in 2026: every option compared

Six platforms still let you run a Docker container online for nothing today: blitz.cloud, Render, Railway, Fly.io, Google Cloud Run and Oracle Cloud's Always Free tier. Heroku, once the default for this, cut its free plan entirely. None of the six give you the same deal: some ask for a card, some stop after days, and only a few throw in a database. Here is what each one actually gives you, checked on 24 October 2026.

The options, checked 24 October 2026

1. blitz.cloud: 5 apps, 512 MB memory, 10 GB storage and one database, no card, no time limit. Apps sleep after 30 minutes without visitors and wake on the next one. Runs in the EU.
2. Render: 750 instance hours a month and 512 MB per service, no card. Web services sleep after 15 minutes without traffic. The free Postgres database expires after 30 days. Frankfurt is one of its regions.
3. Railway: a $5 trial credit for 30 days, then a Free plan with $1 of usage a month, no card to start. Apps only sleep if you switch it on yourself; past the credit, usage is billed. Amsterdam is one of its regions.
4. Fly.io: a trial of 2 machine hours or 7 days, whichever ends first. Trial machines stop after 5 minutes idle. Adding a database ends the trial early. Several EU regions, no card to start, one to add a database.
5. Heroku: no free plan anymore. The cheapest is Eco at $5 a month, card required, and "eu" is a region without a named EU city.
6. Google Cloud Run: a monthly free allowance of CPU, memory and 2 million requests, scaling to zero between requests. Needs a billing account (a card) even though the allowance itself costs nothing. Frankfurt and Belgium are among its regions.
7. Oracle Cloud Always Free: never expires. Up to 2 Arm-based OCPUs and 12 GB of memory, split across small instances, plus two tiny AMD VMs with 1 GB each, and two Autonomous Databases (20 GB each, Oracle's own database, not Postgres). You pick a home region at sign-up, including Frankfurt. A card is required for identity verification; you are not charged unless you choose to upgrade. An instance left almost idle for 7 days can be reclaimed.

At a glance

Questions people ask

Do these run 24/7?

Only some of them. blitz.cloud, Railway (until the credit runs out) and Oracle's Always Free VMs stay up around the clock; the rest put something to sleep. Render and Heroku's own free-tier dynos sleep after minutes of no traffic. Fly.io and Google Cloud Run scale machines down to nothing between requests, which is cheap but means the first request after a quiet spell waits for a cold start.

Do I need a credit card?

blitz.cloud, Render, Railway and Fly.io let you start without one (Fly.io asks for one only if you add a database). Heroku, Google Cloud Run and Oracle Cloud all want a card before you can create anything, even though none of them charge it while you stay inside the free limits. Oracle's card is purely an identity check; Google's billing account can start charging the moment you go over the free allowance.

Is any of this permanent?

blitz.cloud and Oracle Cloud's Always Free both say explicitly that the free resources don't expire. Google Cloud Run's free allowance also has no end date, only a monthly reset. Render, Railway and Fly.io are all time-boxed or credit-boxed: Render's free database expires after 30 days even though the service itself doesn't, Railway's deal depends on a trial credit, and Fly.io is a 7-day trial outright. Heroku has no free option left to call permanent.

What happens when a free app sleeps?

On blitz.cloud and Render, a sleeping app wakes on the next visitor, in seconds, with nothing lost. On Fly.io and Google Cloud Run, "sleep" means scaling to zero: the container is gone and a fresh one starts cold on the next request. Oracle's VMs don't sleep by themselves, but an instance Oracle judges idle for 7 days (CPU, network and memory all under 20%) can be reclaimed, which is a harder stop than a nap.

Where blitz.cloud fits

blitz.cloud is the only one here with no card, no time limit and a database included, but it is also the smallest: one region, no private images, no arm64. If you need more regions, more compute, or a platform used in production for years, one of the others fits better. What's live has the current, honest list of what blitz.cloud does and doesn't do today. The two guides below walk through actually deploying a container: How to deploy a Docker container for free and Is there free Docker hosting in the EU?.

Sources

• https://render.com/docs/free
• https://render.com/docs/regions
• https://railway.com/pricing
• https://docs.fly.io/about/free-trial/
• https://fly.io/docs/reference/regions/
• https://www.heroku.com/pricing/
• https://cloud.google.com/run/pricing
• https://cloud.google.com/run/docs/locations
• https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm
• https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/GSG/Tasks/signingup_topic-Sign_Up_for_Free_Oracle_Cloud_Promotion.htm

Facts checked on 24 October 2026. Prices and plans change; tell us at hallo@blitzworks.io if something here is out of date.