Best Free Database Hosting in 2026 (Limits Compared)

Short answer

Always-free tiers (Neon, Supabase, MongoDB Atlas, Aiven, Turso, Cloudflare D1, Azure SQL Database free offer, Azure Cosmos DB free tier) have no end date but cap storage and usage.
AWS and Google Cloud lead with credits and time-limited trials for their relational services: AWS's Free plan lasts up to 6 months, and Cloud SQL's free trial instance lasts up to 30 days.
Idle rules matter as much as storage: Supabase pauses free projects after a week of inactivity, Neon suspends compute after 5 minutes, and Aiven may power off inactive free services.
Free tiers suit learning, prototypes and demos; most exclude or limit backups, so do not keep the only copy of important data on one.

How we know: Research-based: every limit below was checked on the provider's own pricing page or documentation on 8 October 2026. Free tiers change often, so confirm on the provider's site before you rely on one. CodeWithSQL has not run these services for this guide.

Free database hosting: always-free tiers vs trials

"Free database hosting" covers two very different offers, and confusing them is the most common way people get an unexpected bill or lose a database:

Always-free tiers have no end date. You can keep using them indefinitely as long as you stay inside the limits. Neon, for example, describes its free plan as having no time limits and needing no credit card; Microsoft says the Azure SQL Database free offer applies per database for the lifetime of your subscription.
Trials and credit-based plans end. Google's Cloud SQL free trial instance lasts up to 30 days, and AWS's Free plan lets new customers explore RDS and Aurora for up to 6 months. After that you either upgrade to a paid plan or lose access.

For a few weeks of learning, a trial is fine; for a small project you want to keep, pick an always-free tier and check its idle rules.

Free cloud database limits compared

The table lists the documented free limits for each service. "Always free" means the provider states no end date; "trial" means a fixed period.

Free database hosting tiers and their documented limits (checked 8 October 2026)
Service	Engine	Type	Storage	Compute or usage	Idle and other rules
Neon Free	PostgreSQL	Always free	1 GB per project, up to 100 projects	100 CU-hours per project per month, up to 2 CU	Compute scales to zero after 5 minutes idle (fixed on Free)
Supabase Free	PostgreSQL	Always free	500 MB database per project	Shared CPU, 500 MB RAM; 2 active projects	Projects pause after 1 week of inactivity
MongoDB Atlas Free	MongoDB	Always free	512 MB	Shared RAM and vCPU; one Free cluster per project	No backups; cannot configure storage or memory
Aiven Free	PostgreSQL, MySQL (and others)	Always free	1 GB	1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, one VM	Cannot choose cloud or region; may be powered off when inactive
Turso Free	SQLite-compatible	Always free	5 GB	100 databases; 500 million rows read and 10 million rows written per month	Databases are blocked when a limit is exceeded on the free plan
Cloudflare D1 (Workers Free)	SQLite semantics	Always free	5 GB total	5 million rows read and 100,000 rows written per day	Not billed for compute; usage-based only
Azure SQL Database free offer	SQL Server engine (Azure SQL)	Always free (per database, lifetime of subscription)	32 GB data and 32 GB backup storage per database	100,000 vCore seconds per month; up to 10 databases per subscription	Can be set to pause when the free limits are reached
Azure Cosmos DB free tier	NoSQL (several APIs)	Always free (lifetime of the account)	25 GB	1000 RU/s	Usage above the limits is billed
Amazon DynamoDB free tier	NoSQL key-value	Monthly free tier, per Region	25 GB	25 write and 25 read capacity units	Usage above the limits is billed
Google Firestore free quota	NoSQL document	Daily free quota	1 GiB stored	50,000 reads, 20,000 writes and 20,000 deletes per day	One free database per project
AWS Free plan (RDS and Aurora)	MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, SQL Server Express; Aurora PostgreSQL serverless	Credits, up to 6 months	Aurora serverless: 1 GiB per cluster	RDS on db.t3.micro and db.t4g.micro; Aurora serverless up to 4 ACUs	Ends after 6 months or when credits run out; then switch to the Paid plan
Google Cloud SQL free trial instance	MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server	Trial, up to 30 days	100 GB	8 vCPU Enterprise Plus instance, 64 GB memory	One per project; must be created in a new project with billing enabled

Best free database options for PostgreSQL and MySQL

For a free PostgreSQL database that you want to keep, Neon and Supabase are the main options. Neon allows many small projects and suspends compute when idle, so a free database wakes on the next connection; Neon says it reactivates within a few hundred milliseconds. Supabase gives a dedicated Postgres instance with auth and storage, but pauses the whole project after a week without activity, and allows only two active free projects. Aiven offers free PostgreSQL and MySQL with no time limit, but you cannot choose the cloud or region.

For MySQL specifically, the always-free choice is narrower: Aiven's free tier, or a hyperscaler trial. PlanetScale, a well-known MySQL-compatible provider, lists no free tier. For more PostgreSQL detail, the free PostgreSQL hosting guide in this section goes further, and Supabase vs Neon compares the two leading options.

Free database tiers on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud

AWS free database options

Under the AWS Free Tier for accounts opened after 15 July 2025, new customers choose a Free plan or a Paid plan and receive credits. AWS states that the Free plan covers RDS on db.t3.micro and db.t4g.micro instances for MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB and SQL Server Express, and Aurora PostgreSQL serverless with up to 4 ACUs and 1 GiB of storage per cluster, for up to 6 months. DynamoDB has its own monthly free tier (25 GB of storage and 25 read and write capacity units). Accounts opened earlier stay on the legacy 12-month free tier.

Azure free database options

Azure has the most generous always-free relational option of the three: the Azure SQL Database free offer, which Microsoft says gives each database 100,000 vCore seconds, 32 GB of data and 32 GB of backup storage per month for the lifetime of the subscription, with up to 10 such databases per subscription, regardless of subscription type. Azure Cosmos DB adds a free tier of 1000 RU/s and 25 GB for the lifetime of the account.

Google Cloud free database options

Google Cloud SQL has no always-free tier; instead, a free trial instance lets you use most Cloud SQL features for up to 30 days, and Google lists it as an 8 vCPU Enterprise Plus instance with 64 GB of memory and 100 GB of storage. New Google Cloud customers also get trial credits over 90 days. For small NoSQL workloads, Firestore's daily free quota (1 GiB stored, 50,000 reads and 20,000 writes per day) has no end date.

What free online databases leave out

Backups. MongoDB Atlas states you cannot enable backups on Free clusters; other free tiers keep shorter restore windows. Export your data regularly.
Uptime. Paused or powered-off databases need to be resumed, sometimes manually. Do not use a free tier behind a service that must answer instantly.
Region choice. Some free tiers place the database for you; check latency from where your application runs.
Support and SLAs. Free tiers come with community support and, on most services, no availability SLA.
Upgrade path. Check what the first paid tier costs before you build on a free one; our database hosting providers shortlist lists entry prices.

Which free database hosting to choose

Learning SQL or following a course: any of the PostgreSQL free tiers, or a local install. You can practise most of the SQL on CodeWithSQL against a free Neon or Supabase database.
A side project you want to keep online: Neon (many projects, scale to zero) or Supabase (if you want auth and storage), and keep exports.
SQL Server: the Azure SQL Database free offer.
Document or key-value data: MongoDB Atlas Free, Azure Cosmos DB free tier, DynamoDB or Firestore.
Edge or serverless apps on Cloudflare: D1.
Evaluating a hyperscaler for production: the AWS Free plan or the Cloud SQL free trial, with a reminder set for the end date.

Pricing

Prices from the provider's official pricing pages, checked 8 October 2026, region Global offers as described on each provider's free tier page, in USD, excluding tax. List prices only; discounts, commitments and your actual usage change the bill.

Credit amounts and free-plan prices as published on 8 October 2026:

AWS: new customers receive up to 100 USD in credits at sign-up and can earn up to 100 USD more, 200 USD in total, on both the Free and Paid plans.
Google Cloud: the Free Trial gives a 300 USD welcome credit to spend over 90 days.
Neon, Supabase, Aiven, Turso: free plans are listed at 0 USD per month; MongoDB describes the Atlas free tier as free forever.
Cloudflare D1: on the Workers Paid plan, storage beyond the first 5 GB is listed at 0.75 USD per GB-month.

The next step up is usually small: Aiven lists a Developer plan at 5 USD per month and Turso a Developer plan at 4.99 USD per month. Hyperscaler instances are billed by the hour; see the cloud database pricing comparison.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free database hosting?

For PostgreSQL you want to keep, Neon or Supabase; for SQL Server, the Azure SQL Database free offer; for MongoDB, Atlas Free. The right one depends on the engine and on whether the database can tolerate being paused when idle.

Is there a free cloud database with no time limit?

Yes. Neon, Supabase, MongoDB Atlas, Aiven, Turso and Cloudflare D1 have free plans with no stated end date, and Microsoft states the Azure SQL Database free offer lasts for the lifetime of the subscription. All have storage and usage limits.

Does AWS have a free database?

AWS offers new customers a Free plan for up to 6 months that covers RDS on db.t3.micro and db.t4g.micro instances (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, SQL Server Express) and Aurora PostgreSQL serverless within set limits. DynamoDB also has a monthly free tier.

Can I host a production app on a free database?

Only a very small one. Free tiers often pause when idle, limit backups and offer no SLA, so keep exports and plan a paid tier.

What happens when I exceed a free tier limit?

It depends on the provider. Some block the database until the next period or an upgrade (Turso says free-plan databases are blocked once a limit is exceeded), some pause it (Azure SQL Database free offer can pause), and some start billing for the excess (Azure Cosmos DB, DynamoDB).

Sources

Checked 8 October 2026.

How we research cloud database guides: our editorial method. CodeWithSQL earns nothing from the providers mentioned.