For a new-age cloud company, I'd expect the following in the free plan:
- Ability to setup a server quickly and for free. It can be a small server (512 MB).
- Ability to store some data in a S3-equivalent storage system. Again, I'd assume they would limit the data storage in the free plan.
- Ability to access and manage DNS. I would expect full control on the DNS even in the free plan.
- Be able to host a static website from the distributed storage directly. This would be a very smart move if available in the free plan. If they offer blog / site templates, that's killer.
- Git repository and direct hosting via GitOps. This is similar to the Heroku workflow and it's a great crowd puller. I'd assume they would put this in their free plan.
I understand that most providers already give this in their plans. Hence, this list may be a biased one.