A free Heroku alternative where the database is not deleted after 30 days

Heroku's free plan ended in 2022, and most free plans that replaced it either expire or delete the database after a few weeks. Uppcoder's free plan keeps a Python, Node or other web app online with a PostgreSQL database that stays, backed up every night, with no card and no time limit.

Why free databases disappear

Free hosting is cheap to give away for the app and expensive for the database: the data has to be kept and backed up. So most free plans put the limit on the database. As the providers' own pages put it on 31 October 2026:

  • Heroku: no free plan. The cheapest is Eco dynos at $5 a month plus Essential-0 Postgres at $5 a month (heroku.com/pricing).
  • Render: "Free Render Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation." After a 14-day grace period, "Render deletes the database (along with all of its data)" (render.com/docs/free).
  • Railway: a trial of up to 30 days with a one-off $5 credit, then a free plan with $1 of credit a month (Railway's free trial docs).
  • Fly.io: "New organizations don't have a free tier or a monthly free usage allowance"; a trial of up to 2 hours of machine time or 7 days, then a credit card (docs.fly.io).

What you get on Uppcoder's free plan

The free plan (Spark) runs one app with one database. No card needed, and no time limit: if we ever change or end it, you hear from us by email at least 60 days before.

  • One app with one database: 2 GB of memory and 2 GB of disk
  • PostgreSQL, MySQL or MariaDB, kept for as long as the app is, not deleted after a set number of days
  • Backed up every night to a separate server, the free plan included
  • Its own HTTPS address from the first minute; Private or Public with one switch
  • VS Code in the browser and a terminal next to the app, or SSH from your own editor

Move a Heroku-style app

A Heroku app reads its database from DATABASE_URL, and Uppcoder gives the app the same variable, so most apps need no code change. Sign up at portal.uppcoder.com, then Billing, Available Plans, Spark, Start free (confirm your email first). Stacks, Create, Blank stack: pick your framework (Django, FastAPI, Flask, Node, Next.js and more) and add PostgreSQL; it is connected to the app automatically. Deploy. On the stack page, the app's card has Connect: paste your repository's https address and pick the branch. Then run your migrations in the web terminal. To bring your data along, take a plain SQL dump of the old database on your own machine, put the file in the app (drag it into VS Code), and load it from the web terminal; the PostgreSQL client is one install away. Use a plain dump, not Heroku's backup file: that one needs the newest pg_restore, the plain one loads with any psql.

# on your own machine, from the old database
pg_dump --no-owner --no-acl "$OLD_DATABASE_URL" > data.sql

# in the app's web terminal, with data.sql in the app
apt-get update && apt-get install -y postgresql-client
psql "$DATABASE_URL" -f data.sql

What the free plan does not do

One app per person, with 2 GB of memory. For more apps, more memory or a team, see the paid plans on portal.uppcoder.com/pricing. The Django and FastAPI guides go through a first deploy step by step.

Your app, your database, still there next month: free, with no card.