A live demo for your pet project: where to deploy for free

Why no link means it doesn't count

Whoever reviews your CV won't clone the repository, install dependencies and work out the configuration. They have forty applications and an hour.

A link that opens in two seconds is the difference between "looked at it" and "moved on". Deployment costs one evening and pays for itself immediately.

The options

Static pages. If your project is a page with no server behind it, it can be hosted free and essentially forever. Good for interfaces, landing pages and simple browser-based tools.

Application platforms with a free tier. These run an app with a server and a database. The usual price of free is sleeping when idle: the first request after a pause takes a while.

A small virtual server. Cheap to rent. More fiddling, but you learn how things actually work — which is useful experience in its own right and something you can talk about.

Containers. Not a hosting method but a packaging method that makes moving between platforms nearly painless. Packaged properly, you aren't tied to one provider.

What to check when choosing

• Does it sleep. If the first response after a pause takes half a minute, the visitor is already gone. For a portfolio that matters more than it seems.
• Is there a database. Many free tiers give you the app only; storage is separate and paid.
• A decent address. Not essential, but a short readable URL looks better than a long generated one.
• How long it stays free. Terms change. Check every few months that your link is still alive.

What you must do

Test from someone else's device. Not your own browser where everything is cached, but a phone on mobile data. Half the nasty surprises surface exactly there.

Load some sample data. An empty screen impresses nobody. Make sure a first-time visitor sees what it looks like in use.

Remove real keys. Anything that reached the code should be considered exposed. Keep such things in environment variables.

Set up an availability check. The simplest is looking yourself once a month. Free platforms like to quietly switch off long-idle projects.

One more thing

Deploy in week two, not at the end. Deployment left for later always costs more than budgeted, and it's often exactly where the project stops.