Netlify has always had a very generous free tier. With 100GB of bandwidth per month, it's an excellent option for hosting your web project. The idea is simple: if your project uses up the 100GB, you can move to the next tier at $19 USD per month, which provides 1TB (1000GB) of bandwidth.
If you exceed even that, chances are your project has grown enough to afford the additional costs. This level of traffic is substantial, and most projects won't come close to using it.
The problem with services of this nature, however, is that there are no controls in place to help you avoid going over the limit. And if you do go over, your site can - for all intents and purposes - be held hostage until you pay the bill. There are horror stories galore of hobby developers making mistakes in their projects and receiving massive bills as a result.
It's a case of "with great power comes great responsibility." Yes, you get the benefit of free hosting, but it's up to you to implement safeguards. For example, streaming of audio or video directly from your site will consume bandwidth rapidly. In such a case, it is better to host it elsewhere and embed it into your site.
Fortunately, this has become a thing of the past for Netlify users as their enhanced free tier is now available, effective November 2024.
From their website:
Q) "What is Netlify Free?
The new free plan for Netlify joins the rest of the self-serve pricing plan options and is exactly what it says on the tin: free forever with no financial risk. On the Free plan, you can deploy commercial projects, personal sites, or other creative explorations you want to share on the web.
Here's how it works:
- Free 100%: Deploy without a credit card and never pay.
- Generous free tier: 100GB bandwidth, 300 build minutes, 125,000 function and 1M edge function invocations, 10GB storage.
- Transparent Usage Warnings: We are investing in notifications such that you will receive updates on your approach to 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100% of your monthly limits.
- Instant upgrades: If your app or site exceeds the Free plan limits for the month, it will be suspended for the remaining days in the calendar month. At any time you can reactivate your site in seconds by upgrading to a usage-based plan."
In summary, this update makes Netlify an even better place to host your project.
