Discord Bot Hosting: Free vs Paid Options Compared (2025)
This guide compares reliable ways to run a Discord bot 24/7. It focuses on what actually works with persistent WebSockets, highlights free options that are truly usable, and shows when paying a few dollars beats fighting with sleeping tiers.
Table of Contents
TL;DR: Quick Picks
Hobby bot, truly $0 and always-on
- Oracle Cloud Always Free (ARM) if available in your region
- Google Cloud Always Free e2-micro (eligible regions) for low-traffic bots
Small production bot, lowest paid cost
- Hetzner Cloud CX11 (EU) or Contabo/OVH low-end VPS
- Vultr $3–$6 or DigitalOcean $5 for US/global regions
Prefer PaaS over server management
- Fly.io/Koyeb for 24/7 containers with simple scaling
- Render/Railway for easy CI/CD (paid tiers for persistent workers)
Truly Free or Free-Tier Options
Oracle Cloud Always Free
Always Free VMs (e.g., Ampere A1/AMD micro) suitable for small Node/Python bots with persistent WS.
Best for: Truly free 24/7 if capacity available in your region.
- Capacity can be limited; instances may be reclaimed during maintenance.
- Setup requires cloud familiarity (SSH, firewall, updates).
Google Cloud Always Free (e2-micro)
Always Free e2-micro VM in select regions; enough for low-traffic bots.
Best for: Reliable $0 starter VPS with good docs and tooling.
- Eligible regions only; resources are very limited.
- Persistent WS works, but CPU/RAM is tight for heavy features.
AWS Free Tier (12 months)
750 hours/month of t2/t3.micro for first 12 months (new accounts).
Best for: Learning + production-lite for a year with careful limits.
- After 12 months, standard pricing applies.
- Complexity and costs can spike if you add other services.
PaaS Container Hosts (Paid for 24/7)
These platforms run your container 24/7 with minimal ops. Free plans typically sleep; use paid workers/services for bots that must keep a steady gateway connection.
Fly.io
Pros
- Geographic placement
- Simple 24/7 containers
- Autoscaling basics
Cons
- Free allowances change; 24/7 typically paid
- Learning curve (flyctl, volumes)
Great balance of control and convenience for a single-container bot.
Pricing & docsKoyeb
Pros
- Simple builds
- Decent free trial/credits at times
- Docker/OCI support
Cons
- Always-on usually paid
- Limited regions vs hyperscalers
Good for small always-on services without managing a VPS.
Pricing & docsRender
Pros
- GitHub deploys
- Background workers (paid)
- Good DX
Cons
- Free web services sleep; persistent workers need paid
- Cold starts on free
Use paid Background Worker for bots; free web services are not ideal for WS bots.
Pricing & docsRailway
Pros
- Fast deploys
- Nice logs/metrics
- Good DX
Cons
- No permanent free 24/7; paid usage for persistent bots
- Pricing may change
Great for staging; production bots should be on paid tiers.
Pricing & docsVPS Providers (Maximum Control)
A small VPS is often the best value for 24/7 reliability. You maintain the OS, runtime, and process manager - more control, slightly more work.
Hetzner Cloud (EU)
Pros
- Very low cost in EU
- Solid performance
- Predictable pricing
Cons
- EU-centric regions
- Card/KYC flow
Vultr
Pros
- Many regions
- Hourly billing
- Low entry price
Cons
- Network caps vary
- Shared CPU contention on lowest tiers
DigitalOcean
Pros
- Great docs
- Managed DBs/add-ons
- Simple UI
Cons
- No free tier
- Can be pricier than EU hosts
Akamai/Linode
Pros
- Stable VPS
- Good support
- Simple pricing
Cons
- Slightly higher entry cost than budget EU providers
Specialized Bot Hosts
If you want 24/7 uptime without touching servers or Docker, specialized bot hosts are "panel-first" and cheap. Great to get online fast; less flexible long term.
Best Practices & Common Pitfalls
Essentials
- Use Node 18/20 LTS or modern Python; keep dependencies updated.
- Store secrets in env vars/secret managers, not in git.
- Use a process manager (pm2/systemd) or a PaaS worker for restarts.
- Implement exponential backoff on Discord gateway reconnects.
- Log key events and add alerts (status pings or uptime checks).
- Plan sharding for 2,500+ guilds; watch memory per shard.
- Voice/music bots need higher CPU and region-near hosting.
Pitfalls
- Free "web" tiers that sleep are NOT suitable for persistent WebSocket bots.
- Under-provisioned memory causes disconnect loops and crashes.
- Mixing heavy jobs (AI, TTS, scraping) with the gateway process reduces stability - split them.
- Keep YouTube/music legalities in mind; hosting providers do act on DMCA.
Recommendation by Stage
- Prototype / Learning: Oracle/Google always-free or Fly.io/Koyeb small paid container.
- Small Production: Hetzner/Vultr/DO VPS (1–2GB RAM), pm2/systemd, separate heavy jobs.
- Growing Bot (1k+ guilds): Add sharding, move to multi-container on Fly.io/Koyeb or larger VPS cluster.
List and Grow Your Bot
Once you're online 24/7, list your bot and enable vote revenue sharing to turn usage into income.
Pricing and free-tier details change frequently. Always confirm on the official pricing pages linked above before choosing a provider.