Guide
How to host a small always-on app cheaply
A side project, a Discord bot with a dashboard, a webhook receiver, a small API — they all need to run around the clock, but a full server or a managed platform is overkill and the generous free tiers are mostly gone. Here's a simple, cheap way to keep a small app online.
Built it with an AI assistant? You're who this is for
Vibe-coding gets you a working app fast — and then you hit the wall everyone hits: how do I actually put this online? You don't need to learn servers, nginx, or certificates. If your app runs as a container (most do, or start from a one-click template), Sinkron gives it a public URL with TLS, load-balancing, and restarts handled for you.
The cheapest option isn't a server — it's per-hour compute
Renting a VPS means paying a flat monthly rate for a box that sits idle most of the time, plus the work of securing and maintaining it. A managed app platform is easier but adds monthly minimums and usage fees. For a small app, the cheapest path is to run it on a distributed compute network and pay only for the seconds it runs — the compute comes from spare machines rather than a data center, so you pay a fraction of the usual price.
Do it in four steps
1. Add a little funding
Top up a balance by card or USDC. There's no subscription and no minimum — you spend it down as your app runs, and whatever you don't use stays yours.
2. Deploy your app
Point Sinkron at a container image — your own, or one of the one-click templates (a hello web server, an HTTP API, a static site) — and choose how much CPU and RAM it needs. Any language, any framework; there's no server to provision.
3. Get a public URL
Your app comes up across several independent machines, load-balanced behind a single HTTPS URL with health checks and automatic restarts. No nginx, no certificates, no single box to fall over.
4. Pay only while it runs
Billing is per second of runtime. If you ever run low we email you first, and if the balance hits zero your sessions stop so you're never billed past your deposit. Stop a session and the cost drops to zero.
What you can run this way
- Web apps and sites
- APIs, backends, and webhook receivers
- Discord/Telegram bots and their dashboards
- Background and batch jobs
What it costs
Because you pay for a small CPU/RAM footprint by the second instead of a flat monthly server, a small always-on app typically runs for pennies an hour — and nothing when it's stopped. See how pricing works, or compare it directly with a $5 VPS.
Get your app online
Free to sign up, billed by the second, no lock-in.