Java hosting compared: free tiers, real prices, sleep rules and SLAs

Java hosting today splits into three camps: container platforms that run any JVM app from a Dockerfile, clouds with a Java or Tomcat stack built in, and plain virtual machines where you install the JDK yourself. Price is only part of the decision. The other parts are how much memory you get for the JVM, whether the app sleeps when nobody visits, and how you can pay. Figures checked in November 2026.

The short answer for most small projects: if you want zero server work, a 1 GB Fly.io machine at $6.70 a month is the cheapest managed, always-on home with enough memory for a Spring Boot app. If you are comfortable with Linux, a Hetzner CAX11 gives you 4 GB of RAM for less than most platforms charge for 1 GB. Everything else on this page explains why.

The full Java hosting comparison table

Each provider name links to the official page the figures come from. A dash means that page does not state it. Monthly figures for Azure B1 and Clever Cloud are hourly list prices multiplied by 730 hours. Hetzner's cheaper CX23 (EUR 5.99) showed as unavailable when checked, and both European providers price in euros excluding VAT.

Memory: the limit that decides everything

A JVM is not a PHP script. It reserves heap at start, the JIT compiler takes its own share, and frameworks like Spring Boot load hundreds of classes before serving the first request. That is why the RAM column matters more than the CPU column for Java web hosting.

At 512 MB, which is what Render's free and $7 tiers, Koyeb's free instance and Heroku's Eco and Basic dynos give you, a small app runs if you size the heap for the container and keep dependencies lean. By default the JVM gives the heap a quarter of the limit, 128 MB on a 512 MB plan; -XX:MaxRAMPercentage=70 or so uses the room better than a fixed -Xmx, and a heap larger than the plan ends in exit code 137. A typical Spring Boot service with a database driver and a few libraries is happier at 1 GB. Fly.io charges $6.70 a month for that, Railway's usage pricing works out to roughly $10 per GB per month, and Azure's B1 includes 1.75 GB for about $12.41.

The VM providers break the pattern. Hetzner's CAX11 has 4 GB, and Oracle's Always Free Arm allowance reaches 12 GB at no cost, although Oracle may reclaim an instance whose CPU, network and memory use stay under 20% for seven days. The other catch is that you install the JDK, configure a reverse proxy and patch the operating system yourself. The step-by-step deployment guide walks through both routes.

Sleep rules and cold starts

Free tiers save money by stopping your app. Render spins a free service down after 15 minutes without inbound traffic and needs about a minute to bring it back. Koyeb waits an hour. Heroku's paid Eco dyno sleeps after 30 minutes of inactivity.

For Java this hurts more than for Node or Go, because a cold JVM has to start, load classes and warm up before it responds quickly. A visitor who hits a sleeping app waits for all of it.

Azure F1 handles the problem differently: the app does not sleep on a timer, but it gets only 60 CPU minutes per day, and Microsoft says the free plan is not supported for production. Northflank's Sandbox is the odd one out, described as always on with no sleeping. The list of free Java hosting options compares these rules in more depth, including which tiers are gone.

Tomcat hosting and other stacks

Most platforms here run a fat JAR with an embedded server, which is how Spring Boot, Quarkus and Micronaut ship by default. If your app is a WAR file, you need a servlet container. Three providers offer one as a managed stack: AWS Elastic Beanstalk (Tomcat 11.0.27 on Corretto 25, among other platforms), Azure App Service (Java SE, Tomcat and JBoss EAP) and Clever Cloud (a dedicated WAR runtime). On the container platforms you build an image that starts from an official Tomcat base and copies your WAR in. Pick the branch by your imports: Tomcat 11 needs Java 17 and the jakarta.servlet packages, while javax apps stay on Tomcat 9, supported until 31 March 2027 for 9.0.x, with a 9.1.x branch planned to receive releases until 31 December 2030. The Tomcat hosting guide has the version details.

Heroku also deserves a mention for its Java buildpack, which now defaults new apps to the latest LTS release, OpenJDK 25. If you are unsure which release to target, the Java version timeline lists support end dates by vendor.

Payment methods and billing

This is the column most Java web hosting comparisons skip, and it can rule a provider out before you look at anything else. Railway accepts only credit cards for plan subscriptions. Heroku also wants a credit card and refuses PayPal, ACH and prepaid cards. Fly.io takes cards or Stripe Link and sells prepaid credits with a $25 minimum, but a prepaid card can only buy credits, not be saved as a payment method.

If you do not have a credit card, look at Hetzner (SEPA direct debit, bank transfer, PayPal), Clever Cloud (PayPal and SEPA alongside cards) or DigitalOcean (PayPal, and ACH direct debit for qualifying US customers). Oracle requires a card even for the Always Free tier, only to verify you. No provider in this table documents crypto payment on the pages checked.

Billing models differ too. Railway, Fly.io, Koyeb, Northflank and Clever Cloud bill per second of use, so a stopped app costs nothing. Render and Heroku charge a fixed monthly price per instance.

One provider to cross off

AWS App Runner stopped accepting new customers on April 30, 2026. Existing services keep running, but AWS plans no new features and points new users to Amazon ECS Express Mode. It stays in the table so you can compare prices, though for a new project the choice is Elastic Beanstalk, Lightsail or a container service elsewhere.

How this comparison was put together

Every figure comes from the provider's own pricing, documentation or SLA page, read in November 2026; two exceptions are marked. The Azure 99.95% SLA figure comes from Microsoft's Azure China SLA page, because the global page did not render the App Service text. Monthly prices for Azure B1 and Clever Cloud are computed from hourly list prices over 730 hours. Prices exclude VAT and sales tax. Free tier rules change often, so treat a missing value as "not stated on the checked page", not as "not offered". The data does not cover performance, support response times or real-world uptime; the comparison checks what each provider promises, not how it behaves under load. For licensing questions about the JDK itself, see the OpenJDK vs Oracle JDK comparison.