"Free Docker hosting" is three different products wearing one label, and most outdated lists mix them up. Before the comparison, the taxonomy:
- A standing free tier - a container that runs every month, forever, within fixed limits. It exists as long as the provider does.
- A usage-based free allowance - free until a meter (requests, CPU-seconds) runs out. Generous for spiky traffic, useless for always-on.
- A trial or credit - free once, then it is a paid product. Not actually a tier.
This list covers all three honestly, plus a section on options that stale listicles still recommend but that quietly stopped being free. Disclosure: Miget is our product and we list it first - every number below comes from the providers' own pricing pages as of July 2026.
Quick comparison
| Provider | Free model | What you get | Sleeps? | Compose support |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miget | Standing tier | 256 MiB / 0.1 vCPU / 1 GiB, TLS, IPv4+IPv6 | After 30 min idle | Yes (native) |
| Google Cloud Run | Usage allowance | 2M requests + 180K vCPU-s + 360K GiB-s /mo | Scale-to-zero (cold starts) | No (single containers) |
| Oracle Cloud | DIY capacity | Always Free Arm VMs - the most raw compute | No | Yes (you run Docker yourself) |
| Render | Standing tier | 512 MB web service | After 15 min idle | No (per-service) |
| Railway | One-time $5 credit | Anything, briefly | n/a | Partial (templates) |
| Hugging Face Spaces | Standing tier (public) | 2 vCPU / 16 GB CPU Basic | Yes, on inactivity | No (single Space) |
1. Miget - a standing tier that speaks compose
The free tier is a real fixed allocation: 256 MiB RAM, 0.1 vCPU, 1 GiB storage, with a public TLS endpoint on IPv4 and IPv6. It deploys whatever shape your project already has - a Dockerfile, a registry image, or a whole docker-compose.yml, which is the differentiator here: compose is a first-class deploy format, not a feature request. The tier sleeps after 30 minutes of inactivity and carries no SLA; it is a standing tier, not a demo clock, and the same free allocation covers a managed PostgreSQL if you need one (the free database comparison covers that side).
- Strengths: compose-native, databases included, real public endpoint, upgrade path is a plan change (from $5/month flat), not a migration
- Weaknesses: 256 MiB fits one small service comfortably, not a five-container stack; sleeps when idle
- Best for: small always-on-ish apps, webhooks, bots, staging copies - and anything already shaped as compose (we maintain 139 ready templates)
2. Google Cloud Run - the generous meter
Cloud Run's request-based free tier is the largest allowance on this list: 2 million requests, 180,000 vCPU-seconds, and 360,000 GiB-seconds per month, plus 1 GiB of North America egress. For a low-traffic containerized API that can tolerate scale-to-zero cold starts, the bill genuinely stays at zero - Google's own pricing examples show an hourly one-minute batch job costing $0.00.
The honest catch is the always-on case: keep one 1 vCPU / 512 MiB instance warm and Google's own example prices it at ~$11.61/month - more than a small flat plan elsewhere. The free tier is built for spiky and stateless; it punishes warm and stateful. No compose, no volumes in the classic sense, and your container must speak HTTP.
- Strengths: huge allowance, real production infrastructure, scales up if you ever need it
- Weaknesses: cold starts, stateless-only, always-on costs real money, GCP account complexity
- Best for: low-traffic APIs and event handlers that tolerate cold starts
3. Oracle Cloud Always Free - the most raw capacity, all yours to operate
Oracle's Always Free tier offers Arm VMs with more raw compute than everything else here combined - historically up to 4 Arm cores and 24 GB RAM, subject to capacity availability in your region (their own footnote warns capacity limits apply, and free instances have been reclaimed when idle). You get a real VM: install Docker, run compose, host anything.
The trade is that nothing is managed. You are the platform team: OS patching, TLS, backups, firewall, and the day Docker eats the disk. It is the best answer on this list for "maximum free compute" and the worst for "I just want my app running."
- Strengths: unmatched free capacity, full control, real VMs
- Weaknesses: you operate everything; capacity availability varies; idle instances can be reclaimed
- Best for: technical users who want a free homelab-in-the-cloud and accept the ops
4. Render - familiar, but it naps quickly
Render's free web services run Docker images with 512 MB RAM and sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity, with a noticeable wake-up delay. Fine for demos and portfolio apps; frustrating for anything a human visits at unpredictable times. Note the database side is a trap for the unwary: free Postgres expires 30 days after creation - the compute tier stands, the database tier is a countdown.
- Strengths: polished workflow, Git deploys, honest standing tier for compute
- Weaknesses: 15-minute sleep, wake latency, expiring free database
- Best for: demos and portfolio projects where a wake-up pause is acceptable
5. Railway - a credit, not a tier
Railway gives new accounts a one-time $5 credit. It is a lovely product and the credit is a fair trial, but a trial is what it is: run a 512 MB container continuously and the credit is gone within the month, permanently. Lists that file Railway under "free hosting" are describing 2022.
- Strengths: excellent DX, deploys almost anything, big template catalogue
- Weaknesses: not actually free beyond the first weeks
- Best for: evaluating Railway, not for free hosting
6. Hugging Face Spaces - free for public demos
Spaces' CPU Basic hardware is free and surprisingly beefy (2 vCPU, 16 GB RAM), and Spaces sleep on inactivity. The constraints are structural: Spaces are built for public ML demos - a single app per Space, public by default on the free tier, with the platform's conventions around ports and files. As a general Docker host it is the wrong shape; as free compute for a public Gradio/Streamlit-style demo it is unbeatable.
- Strengths: most free RAM on a managed platform, great for ML demos
- Weaknesses: public-demo shape, not a general-purpose host; sleeps
- Best for: public AI/ML demos and prototypes
What the stale lists get wrong in 2026
Search "free docker hosting" and half the results recommend options that no longer exist. Current state, verified on the providers' own pages this month:
- Heroku has had no free tier since November 2022. Still appears in lists.
- Fly.io removed its free allowances; new accounts pay from the first machine.
- Koyeb's free tier is now a Postgres database (5 hours/month) - there is no standing free compute tier for services.
If a list recommends any of these for free Docker hosting, check the date on the rest of its claims too.
How to choose
- Always-on and small? A standing tier: Miget (compose, databases) or Render (single service, if the 15-minute nap is fine).
- Spiky and stateless? Cloud Run's meter is the most generous free compute on the list - as long as you never need a warm instance.
- Maximum capacity and you enjoy ops? Oracle's Always Free VMs, and you become the platform.
- Public ML demo? Hugging Face Spaces, purpose-built for exactly that.
Frequently asked questions
Is there genuinely free Docker hosting in 2026?
Yes, in three shapes: standing tiers (Miget, Render), usage allowances (Cloud Run), and DIY capacity (Oracle Always Free). What mostly does not exist anymore is the 2020-era "generous free PaaS tier" - Heroku killed it, Fly removed it, Koyeb narrowed it to a database.
Can I run docker-compose for free?
Two real paths: Miget's free tier accepts compose files directly (within 256 MiB, so small stacks), or a free Oracle VM where you run compose yourself. Cloud Run and Render deploy single containers, not compose stacks.
What is the catch with free tiers?
Every sustainable free tier has exactly one of three catches: it sleeps (Miget, Render, Spaces), it meters (Cloud Run), or you operate it (Oracle). A free tier with none of those catches is a trial with better marketing - check for an expiry date.
What happens when I outgrow a free tier?
That is the real differentiator. On usage-metered platforms, growth means a variable invoice. On Miget, it means moving to a fixed plan (from $5/month) with the same deploy pipeline - the point of flat rate hosting is that the bill stays a known number while you grow.