12 ms·

I'd really like access to a tiny, almost free, sql database for personal projects. The cheapest option here is $15 a month, and similar prices for other cloud

by groggo 4y ago

I'd really like access to a tiny, almost free, sql database for personal projects. The cheapest option here is $15 a month, and similar prices for other cloud managed dbs. Heroku was nice and I guess is still a good option, but hard to make a usable site on their free tier because of start up time. Then there's the interesting new option from Cloudflare, D1. Currently I just run my personal project on AWS lambda + dynamodb. It's free, but using dynamodb for relational data is a little awkward.

ajbourg 4y ago
I have a similar desire, I'm considering trying out AWS' RDS Aurora Serverless v2. (ugh, that's a mouthful) Full Postgres/MySQL but extremely quick scale up and down so as long as you have small use, it shouldn't cost a ton. I'm also super interested in Cloudflare D1, looking to get my hands on it and try it out.
- kam 4y ago
  Aurora Serverless v2 doesn't scale to zero, though. Minimum capacity costs $43/month.
  - joshstrange 4y ago
    V2 is a garbage fire and that was before I knew it didn't scale to zero. It doubles the cost of V1 and they have the gall to say: > most Aurora Serverless customers can lower costs by moving to v2 due to a lower starting capacity of 0.5 ACU (vs. 1 ACU in v1) Oh, why thank you AWS, how kind of you. I can go to 0.5? That doesn't matter at all, the price is the save as 1 ACU on V1. D1 is interesting but if you want Serverless MySQL then check out PlanetScale [0]. It's free for hobby projects (it will turn off if you go 1 week with no activity) and then it's a flat $30/mo and you can have 2 production branches and 5 development branches. I've been very happy with them so far. The usage-based pricing is a little scary (I know I don't think in rows read/written) but the limits are super high and so far my usage has been barely a blip. [0] https://planetscale.com/ https://planetscale.com/
    - jamesfinlayson 4y ago
      Thanks for the heads up - I'm using Aurora Serverless v1 which isn't perfect - I guess I won't be jumping to v2 any time soon then.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  Check out PlanetScale [0] (MySQL). It's free for hobby projects and then a flat $30/mo (+usage if you go over their very high limits). You can run your dev/qa/prod environment all on one "database" using their branches and you also get zero-downtime schema changes which is pretty sweet. I've been very happy with them so far. I migrated from RDS Aurora Serverless V1 after being frustrated with the high prices (V2 is even worse) and the annoyance of sleeping DBs (for my dev/qa environments, I couldn't afford $45x3/mo). Now I get all 3 for only $30/mo and safe/easy schema migrations. It's been a joy to work with and their support has been very responsive. This week is a "launch week" for them so you'll probably see a few posts about it this week and I encourage you check them out if you are looking for scalable managed MySQL DBs. [0] https://planetscale.com/ https://planetscale.com/
dinvlad 4y ago
Same here - and particularly one that could serve multiple hobby projects, while using both dev and prod envs (so minimal cost could already be 2-3x).
gen220 4y ago
Have you looked into fly.io? They have a very generous free tier for hobby level projects. https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/ https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/
- ngshiheng 4y ago
  There's also https://railway.app/ https://railway.app/ too. I find their free tier incredibly generous and I am using their managed postgres instance for my side projects (I am not affiliated)
- miyuru 4y ago
  even if the free tier is exhausted, their 1GB disk development PostgreSQL when billed is $2.09 per month. that's cheap. Development - Single node, 1x shared CPU, 256MB RAM, 1GB disk https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/#postgresql-clusters https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/#postgresql-clusters https://fly.io/docs/reference/postgres/ https://fly.io/docs/reference/postgres/
password4321 4y ago
https://supabase.com/pricing https://supabase.com/pricing 2 free 500MB PostgreSQL db's, paused after a week of inactivity
- burggraf 4y ago
  Supabase developer here. Just to clarify, inactivity means "no api calls, no dashboard usage", so your project only gets paused if it's truly inactive for a full week. If you have an application with any sort of usage at all you should not get paused.
  - killingtime74 4y ago
    Do you have HA or replicas? Last time I asked I got no reply
testmasterflex 4y ago
https://server.pro https://server.pro smallest VPS plan costs $5 and has one click installer for MySQL.
DenseComet 4y ago
Cockroachdb serverless is a pretty nice option too. Super easy to spin up an instance and get started since it's mostly postgres compatible. Planetscale has a similar offering with mysql compatibility but I've not tried it.
sea6ear 4y ago
Probably not super popular, but last I checked (a couple months ago), Oracle Cloud will give you up to 2 free Oracle Autonomous (managed) SQL databases and I think if you work the free storage / virtual CPUs right, up to 4 virtual servers that you can put other unmanaged dbs on with their free tier.
- antifa 4y ago
  I think those can be MySQL if that matters, unfortunately no postgres.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  I tried to sign up for that from the EU and it was very painful; I didn't manage to get through it. That feels very much like Oracle though.
herpderperator 4y ago
Why not just host it on a Raspberry Pi? May as well host the entire project on it. If your Internet provider doesn't let external clients directly access your connection, tunnel it through the cheapest VPS you can find. Or just host the whole thing on said cheap VPS.
joshstrange 4y ago
Check out PlanetScale [0] (if you use MySQL). Their hobby tier is free and very generous. If you get to the point of needing more, $30/mo isn't bad for what you get. It's way better than Aurora Serverless V1 or V2 which I was super excited for but turned out to not be worth it all. It failed scaling so much that I had to crank it up before an event or it would never find a good "migration point" or whatever they called it. Aurora Serverless' marketing is straight lies and their pricing is opposite of what I think of when I hear "serverless", $45/mo per DB if you want a single instance in V1 or 0.5 of one in V2. At least V1 allowed you to scale to 0, they removed that in V2. [0] https://planetscale.com/ https://planetscale.com/
dfragnito 4y ago
Have you looked at planetscale.
warmwaffles 4y ago
If you truly want small and quick, use SQLite as a proof of concept.
mekster 4y ago
You can spin up a $5/mo instance on any of the low cost cloud and install MySQL or whatever. Why go the more pricey/complicated route?
- gadflyinyoureye 4y ago
  While I agree with you, the answer is that some people don't want to manage the DB. This means patching the OS, patching the database, and making backups (with reasonable disaster recovery). While you could do all of this, many ask, "How much of my time will be spent DevOp'ing (like learning how to do it and then executing)?" If the number of hours is over some threshold, they might prefer to pay someone to do all of that.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    If they don't want to do any of that, spin up an SQLite db on a local machine and sync it to Google Drive (or equivalent). It's free, probably faster in many cases and several times simpler than any alternative.
  - mekster 4y ago
    I think people tend to overthink about running your own db. There is nothing to patch manually. Security updates are handled automatically via "unattended-upgrades" for Ubuntu and when the OP says, > tiny, almost free, sql database for personal projects running "mysqldump" on a cron job sounds enough to me. > with reasonable disaster recovery You may send that dump file to any S3 based storage anywhere in the world for a decent disaster recovery. (Tools like restic allows automatic data rotation easily.) Launching an instance (even use "MySQL" app instance cloud providers provide) and installing MySQL with 1 command, write a few lines of shell script to take a daily backup should take at most an hour. Optionally, install Caddy web server and set up a few lines for PHP fpm or for other languages a single line to reverse proxy for automatic Let's Encrypt and your site is up. I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials on that. Once things are up, there's nothing to manage. It gives you flexibility with lower price, not to mention gives you the little knowledge you likely want to have down the road.
heelix 4y ago
The more I've worked with sqlite, the more I've been impressed. Spins up as a file that can be put in source control. Supports SQL - all the basic stuff one might try to pull off with a small MySQL instance. The main gotcha is you get a single, local node. For most personal workloads, it covers the basics really well.
barnabask 4y ago
I started this side project originally to answer that same question: https://www.dbaasreview.com/ https://www.dbaasreview.com/ Someone else mentioned Fly.io, have a look at Render too.
- password4321 4y ago
  FWIW: https://render.com/docs/free#free-postgresql-databases https://render.com/docs/free#free-postgresql-databases > free databases are deleted [after 90 + 14 days] > (unless they are upgraded to a paid plan)
martin_a 4y ago
Take this: https://www.hetzner.com/webhosting https://www.hetzner.com/webhosting 1,90 €/month with a TLD included. Won't get much cheaper for a "carefree" solution.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  Webhosting is usually limited to PHP, and that looks to be the case here too.
rmbyrro 4y ago
> using dynamodb for relational data is a little awkward It was not built to serve relational needs. You can bend it that way, though. Of course it will look like something that has been bent.
FractalHQ 4y ago
Supabase free tier is hard to beat. Worth checking out!
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  + the client libraries are well documented and work great (on JS at least). Big fan of Supabase
  - password4321 4y ago
    In case anyone is wondering, you can use it as a straight-up "plain" PostgreSQL database if desired.
jefurii 4y ago
Linode's shared-CPU VPS is $5/mo. You can easily run SQLite3 or MariaDB something else in there.
saimiam 4y ago
Lots of answers below but no one has yet asked what you want the db to do? Know nowing your specific needs will make it easier to give meaningful recommendations.
sharno 4y ago
- Supabase - Fly.io - railway.app - render.com - Oracle Cloud free tier These are the services that I know of that you can get some kind of relation DB to run on for free

by groggo 4y ago

ajbourg 4y ago

I have a similar desire, I'm considering trying out AWS' RDS Aurora Serverless v2. (ugh, that's a mouthful) Full Postgres/MySQL but extremely quick scale up and down so as long as you have small use, it shouldn't cost a ton. I'm also super interested in Cloudflare D1, looking to get my hands on it and try it out.

kam 4y ago
Aurora Serverless v2 doesn't scale to zero, though. Minimum capacity costs $43/month.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  V2 is a garbage fire and that was before I knew it didn't scale to zero. It doubles the cost of V1 and they have the gall to say: > most Aurora Serverless customers can lower costs by moving to v2 due to a lower starting capacity of 0.5 ACU (vs. 1 ACU in v1) Oh, why thank you AWS, how kind of you. I can go to 0.5? That doesn't matter at all, the price is the save as 1 ACU on V1. D1 is interesting but if you want Serverless MySQL then check out PlanetScale [0]. It's free for hobby projects (it will turn off if you go 1 week with no activity) and then it's a flat $30/mo and you can have 2 production branches and 5 development branches. I've been very happy with them so far. The usage-based pricing is a little scary (I know I don't think in rows read/written) but the limits are super high and so far my usage has been barely a blip. [0] https://planetscale.com/ https://planetscale.com/
  - jamesfinlayson 4y ago
    Thanks for the heads up - I'm using Aurora Serverless v1 which isn't perfect - I guess I won't be jumping to v2 any time soon then.
joshstrange 4y ago
Check out PlanetScale [0] (MySQL). It's free for hobby projects and then a flat $30/mo (+usage if you go over their very high limits). You can run your dev/qa/prod environment all on one "database" using their branches and you also get zero-downtime schema changes which is pretty sweet. I've been very happy with them so far. I migrated from RDS Aurora Serverless V1 after being frustrated with the high prices (V2 is even worse) and the annoyance of sleeping DBs (for my dev/qa environments, I couldn't afford $45x3/mo). Now I get all 3 for only $30/mo and safe/easy schema migrations. It's been a joy to work with and their support has been very responsive. This week is a "launch week" for them so you'll probably see a few posts about it this week and I encourage you check them out if you are looking for scalable managed MySQL DBs. [0] https://planetscale.com/ https://planetscale.com/

dinvlad 4y ago

Same here - and particularly one that could serve multiple hobby projects, while using both dev and prod envs (so minimal cost could already be 2-3x).

gen220 4y ago

Have you looked into fly.io? They have a very generous free tier for hobby level projects. https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/ https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/

ngshiheng 4y ago
There's also https://railway.app/ https://railway.app/ too. I find their free tier incredibly generous and I am using their managed postgres instance for my side projects (I am not affiliated)
miyuru 4y ago
even if the free tier is exhausted, their 1GB disk development PostgreSQL when billed is $2.09 per month. that's cheap. Development - Single node, 1x shared CPU, 256MB RAM, 1GB disk https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/#postgresql-clusters https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/#postgresql-clusters https://fly.io/docs/reference/postgres/ https://fly.io/docs/reference/postgres/

password4321 4y ago

https://supabase.com/pricing https://supabase.com/pricing 2 free 500MB PostgreSQL db's, paused after a week of inactivity

burggraf 4y ago
Supabase developer here. Just to clarify, inactivity means "no api calls, no dashboard usage", so your project only gets paused if it's truly inactive for a full week. If you have an application with any sort of usage at all you should not get paused.
- killingtime74 4y ago
  Do you have HA or replicas? Last time I asked I got no reply

testmasterflex 4y ago

https://server.pro https://server.pro smallest VPS plan costs $5 and has one click installer for MySQL.

DenseComet 4y ago

Cockroachdb serverless is a pretty nice option too. Super easy to spin up an instance and get started since it's mostly postgres compatible. Planetscale has a similar offering with mysql compatibility but I've not tried it.

sea6ear 4y ago

Probably not super popular, but last I checked (a couple months ago), Oracle Cloud will give you up to 2 free Oracle Autonomous (managed) SQL databases and I think if you work the free storage / virtual CPUs right, up to 4 virtual servers that you can put other unmanaged dbs on with their free tier.

antifa 4y ago
I think those can be MySQL if that matters, unfortunately no postgres.
tluyben2 4y ago
I tried to sign up for that from the EU and it was very painful; I didn't manage to get through it. That feels very much like Oracle though.

herpderperator 4y ago

Why not just host it on a Raspberry Pi? May as well host the entire project on it. If your Internet provider doesn't let external clients directly access your connection, tunnel it through the cheapest VPS you can find. Or just host the whole thing on said cheap VPS.

joshstrange 4y ago

Check out PlanetScale [0] (if you use MySQL). Their hobby tier is free and very generous. If you get to the point of needing more, $30/mo isn't bad for what you get. It's way better than Aurora Serverless V1 or V2 which I was super excited for but turned out to not be worth it all. It failed scaling so much that I had to crank it up before an event or it would never find a good "migration point" or whatever they called it. Aurora Serverless' marketing is straight lies and their pricing is opposite of what I think of when I hear "serverless", $45/mo per DB if you want a single instance in V1 or 0.5 of one in V2. At least V1 allowed you to scale to 0, they removed that in V2. [0] https://planetscale.com/ https://planetscale.com/

dfragnito 4y ago

Have you looked at planetscale.

warmwaffles 4y ago

If you truly want small and quick, use SQLite as a proof of concept.

mekster 4y ago

You can spin up a $5/mo instance on any of the low cost cloud and install MySQL or whatever. Why go the more pricey/complicated route?

gadflyinyoureye 4y ago
While I agree with you, the answer is that some people don't want to manage the DB. This means patching the OS, patching the database, and making backups (with reasonable disaster recovery). While you could do all of this, many ask, "How much of my time will be spent DevOp'ing (like learning how to do it and then executing)?" If the number of hours is over some threshold, they might prefer to pay someone to do all of that.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  If they don't want to do any of that, spin up an SQLite db on a local machine and sync it to Google Drive (or equivalent). It's free, probably faster in many cases and several times simpler than any alternative.
- mekster 4y ago
  I think people tend to overthink about running your own db. There is nothing to patch manually. Security updates are handled automatically via "unattended-upgrades" for Ubuntu and when the OP says, > tiny, almost free, sql database for personal projects running "mysqldump" on a cron job sounds enough to me. > with reasonable disaster recovery You may send that dump file to any S3 based storage anywhere in the world for a decent disaster recovery. (Tools like restic allows automatic data rotation easily.) Launching an instance (even use "MySQL" app instance cloud providers provide) and installing MySQL with 1 command, write a few lines of shell script to take a daily backup should take at most an hour. Optionally, install Caddy web server and set up a few lines for PHP fpm or for other languages a single line to reverse proxy for automatic Let's Encrypt and your site is up. I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials on that. Once things are up, there's nothing to manage. It gives you flexibility with lower price, not to mention gives you the little knowledge you likely want to have down the road.

heelix 4y ago

The more I've worked with sqlite, the more I've been impressed. Spins up as a file that can be put in source control. Supports SQL - all the basic stuff one might try to pull off with a small MySQL instance. The main gotcha is you get a single, local node. For most personal workloads, it covers the basics really well.

barnabask 4y ago

I started this side project originally to answer that same question: https://www.dbaasreview.com/ https://www.dbaasreview.com/ Someone else mentioned Fly.io, have a look at Render too.

password4321 4y ago
FWIW: https://render.com/docs/free#free-postgresql-databases https://render.com/docs/free#free-postgresql-databases > free databases are deleted [after 90 + 14 days] > (unless they are upgraded to a paid plan)

martin_a 4y ago

Take this: https://www.hetzner.com/webhosting https://www.hetzner.com/webhosting 1,90 €/month with a TLD included. Won't get much cheaper for a "carefree" solution.

411111111111111 4y ago
Webhosting is usually limited to PHP, and that looks to be the case here too.

rmbyrro 4y ago

> using dynamodb for relational data is a little awkward It was not built to serve relational needs. You can bend it that way, though. Of course it will look like something that has been bent.

FractalHQ 4y ago

Supabase free tier is hard to beat. Worth checking out!

wildrhythms 4y ago
+ the client libraries are well documented and work great (on JS at least). Big fan of Supabase
- password4321 4y ago
  In case anyone is wondering, you can use it as a straight-up "plain" PostgreSQL database if desired.

jefurii 4y ago

Linode's shared-CPU VPS is $5/mo. You can easily run SQLite3 or MariaDB something else in there.

saimiam 4y ago

Lots of answers below but no one has yet asked what you want the db to do? Know nowing your specific needs will make it easier to give meaningful recommendations.

sharno 4y ago

- Supabase - Fly.io - railway.app - render.com - Oracle Cloud free tier These are the services that I know of that you can get some kind of relation DB to run on for free