Render
Render is a proprietary cloud PaaS founded 2018, run by founder/CEO Anurag Goel out of San Francisco. In 2026 it raised a $100M Series C extension (Georgian-led) at a $1.5B valuation, $258M total funding. Deploys across 5 regions — Oregon, Ohio, Virginia (US), Frankfurt, and Singapore. Free web services get 750 instance-hours/month, 512MB RAM, 0.1 CPU, and spin down after 15 minutes idle, costing a 30-60s cold start on the next request; free outbound bandwidth was cut from 100GB to 5GB in an April 2026 revision. Free Postgres caps at 1GB, expires 30 days after creation, and has no backups. Paid Starter tier ($7/mo/service) removes cold starts. No credit card required for the free tier. Current version/status: Active SaaS — 5 regions as of July 2026; free-tier bandwidth cut 100GB to 5GB in Apr 2026 revision. License: proprietary SaaS. Pricing: Free: 750 instance-hrs/mo, 512MB RAM/0.1 CPU, spins down after 15min idle (30-60s cold start), 5GB bandwidth, free Postgres 1GB/30-day expiry; Starter (always-on, no cold starts) from $7/mo per service. Maintained by Render Inc. — founder/CEO Anurag Goel; $100M Series C extension 2026 at $1.5B valuation, $258M total funding.
Pick Render for a free-tier demo or side project live in minutes without a credit card, when a 30-60s cold start after 15 minutes idle is tolerable — that's Render's own documented spin-down behavior, not FUD. Don't run a latency-sensitive production API on the free plan; pay the $7/mo Starter to kill cold starts, or go Fly.io if you need real multi-region edge routing (18 regions vs Render's 5, even after Fly.io's own 2025-2026 region-consolidation cutback from 35+). Skip it for GPU/inference workloads — that's Koyeb's lane now that Mistral AI owns it. Render's own docs admit free Postgres carries zero backups and expires in 30 days, so never park data there you can't afford to lose. Known weakness: Render's own docs confirm free web services spin down after 15 minutes idle (30-60s cold start on next request) and free Postgres databases have zero backups and expire after 30 days.
See how it ranks →