I checked 14 free cloud hosting platforms against their own pricing pages. 8 need no card.

The part that makes this useful is the date and the method — checked against the vendors' own pricing pages on 26 September, because these free tiers keep moving. Koyeb adding a card wall and Render cutting bandwidth are exactly the kind of quiet changes that catch people out. The bit I'd underline for anyone running a real business is the fine print: Vercel Hobby is non-commercial, GitHub Pages isn't meant to run a business on, and a free database that expires in 30 days is a demo, not a home. Free is a great place to test an idea — the honest line here is that once real customers depend on it, the first paid step costs less than a site that sleeps or pauses on them.