You know that feeling when you launch something cool but then get anxious about hosting costs?

Yeah, been there!

But these days, I'm running my projects practically for FREE, and I want to share how you can do it too.

Cloud Run

First up, let me geek out about Google Cloud Run for a minute.

This thing is AMAZING.

When I first saw the free tier limits, I had to double-check because they seemed too good to be true:

• First 180,000 vCPU-seconds/month
• First 360,000 GiB-seconds/month
• 2 million requests/month

For example, if you're running a web app, you can expect to get:

• 450,000 free requests per month (not a typo!) , 2s per each
• 2GB RAM and 4 CPUs (seriously!)
• You only pay for what you use while processing requests
• Zero cost for idle time

The best part? I'm running several projects on Cloud Run, and I haven't paid a dime yet.

The free tier is so generous that unless you're building the next viral sensation, you probably won't exceed it.

I used to use Hetzner fo hosting which was fine for a while till they downgraded their traffic to 20 TB/month which was not enough for my needs.

Cloudflare

Next up in my stack is Cloudflare.

Trust me, this is like having an enterprise-level infrastructure team in your pocket.

Here's what I get for exactly $0:

• Global CDN (your apps feel super snappy everywhere)
• Free SSL (no more messing with certificates)
• DDoS protection (peace of mind = priceless)
• Caching that saves your server from breaking a sweat

I used to think services like these would cost a fortune, but nope! Cloudflare's free tier is incredibly generous for indie makers like us.

UnJS's H3:

Now, let me introduce you to my favorite lightweight HTTP framework - h3.

It's part of the unjs ecosystem, and it's perfect for our cheap stack because:

• It's super lightweight (your server will thank you)
• Works like a charm with TypeScript
• Feels modern and nice to work with
• Perfect for Cloud Run deployments

How I Put It All Together

Here's my actual setup (nothing theoretical here - this is what I use every day):

• I host my frontend stuff through Cloudflare
• My APIs run on Cloud Run using h3
• When I need some edge computing magic, I use Cloudflare Workers
• I cache everything I can (seriously, caching is your best friend)

My Experience

Let me share some real numbers:

I'm currently running an API service that handles about 100K requests monthly, and guess what?

It costs me nothing. Zip. Nada.

The key was setting up proper caching (yes, I'm mentioning caching again) and writing efficient code.

Wrapping Up

Here's the thing - while I've shared my favorite stack and why it works for me, it's crucial to remember that the "best" stack isn't universal.

It's not about finding the cheapest solution or following what's trending on Twitter.

It's about finding tools that align with your expertise, make you productive, and honestly, make you excited to code.

Sure, this stack saves me money (who doesn't love that?), but that's not why I stick with it. I use it because I know these tools inside out, I'm productive with them, and most importantly - they help me bring my ideas to life quickly.

I've seen friends build amazing products using completely different stacks - some swear by AWS Lambda, others can't live without Digital Ocean, and I know brilliant devs who do incredible things with Vercel or Heroku.

And you know what? They're all right for their specific cases.

Your perfect stack is out there, and it might look nothing like mine.

Maybe you love the AWS ecosystem, or perhaps you're a Deno enthusiast.

That's awesome!

The beauty of being an indie maker is that you get to choose tools that match your style and strengths