🔥 Free Cloud SQL Database Options
🐘 PostgreSQL Hosting (Free Tiers / Free Forever)
📌 Neon
Serverless PostgreSQL with a free tier.
Includes branching, auto-scaling, and cloud-native features.
Useful for small to medium development projects.
📌 Supabase (PostgreSQL)
Managed PostgreSQL with backend services (auth, storage, realtime).
Free tier includes a database with some storage and request limits.
📌 ElephantSQL
Fully managed PostgreSQL with a tiny free plan.
Great for learning or very small apps (small storage/connection caps).
📌 Aiven (Open Source Stack)
Offers free PostgreSQL and other databases (limits apply).
Great if you also want MySQL on the same platform.
📌 Heroku Postgres
Has had free tiers (historical; check current status as policies change).
Easy to integrate with other Heroku services.
☁️ MySQL Hosting (Free Tiers / Free Options)
📌 PlanetScale (MySQL-compatible)
Serverless MySQL with a generous free tier.
Good choice for distributed or scalable MySQL projects.
📌 Aiven
Managed MySQL alongside PostgreSQL and Redis options.
📌 Clever Cloud
Offers managed MySQL and PostgreSQL with a modest free tier.
📌 Other Small Free Hosts
Some sites advertise free MySQL hosting (e.g., free database services or web hosts), but these can vary widely in reliability and limits.
☁️ Big Cloud Providers (Free Credits / Free Tier)
These aren’t free forever (unlimited) for full SQL hosting, but they do offer free usage credits or limited free tiers:
🔹 Amazon Web Services (AWS) — Amazon RDS
Free tier includes 750 hours/month of micro instance running MySQL or PostgreSQL.
Good for experimenting for up to 12 months as part of the AWS Free Tier.
🔹 Google Cloud SQL
New users get $300 in free credits that can be used to run Cloud SQL (MySQL/PostgreSQL) for about 30 days.
After credits expire, you start paying based on usage.
📊 Summary — Best Free Options
Provider Database Free Forever? Notes
Neon PostgreSQL Yes Serverless, autoscale Supabase PostgreSQL Yes Plus backend features ElephantSQL PostgreSQL Yes Tiny free plan PlanetScale MySQL-compatible Yes Serverless Aiven MySQL/PostgreSQL Yes Limits on usage AWS RDS MySQL/PostgreSQL Free tier 12 mo Micro instance — great for early dev Google Cloud SQL MySQL/PostgreSQL Free credits Try before you pay
🧠 Tips Before You Choose
Understand limits: Free tiers often have storage, connection, or compute limits that can affect performance.
Production readiness: For real production apps with lots of data or high traffic, you’ll likely need a paid plan.
No credit-card signup: Some providers require a card even for free tiers; others don’t.