Free Discord bot hosting: what actually works
Free bot hosting exists, and for a bot you are still building it is often enough. It just comes with catches that nobody mentions until your bot is offline at 3am.
6 minute read
The short answer
You can host a Discord bot for free. The reliable free options are running it on hardware you already own, or using a cloud provider's always-free allowance. Most "free hosting" platforms built for websites are a poor fit, because they sleep apps that get no web traffic, and a bot gets none.
Free option 1: A computer you already own
An old laptop or a Raspberry Pi left running is truly free apart from electricity, and has no sleep timer. It is the most dependable free choice, provided the machine and your internet stay up.
Run the bot as a service that restarts on failure, for example a systemd unit with Restart=always on Linux, so a crash or reboot does not leave it offline.
Free option 2: Cloud always-free allowances
Some large cloud providers include a small virtual machine in their free tier that you can run continuously. These can host a bot indefinitely.
- Good: a real always-on server at no cost.
- Catches: sign-up usually needs a card, the free machine is small, the limits and rules change over time, and you manage and secure the whole server yourself.
Read the current free-tier terms carefully before relying on one; they are the part most likely to change.
Free option 3: App platforms with a free plan
Platforms designed for web apps often have a free plan, and many tutorials point bot makers at them.
- Sleeping: free plans commonly stop an app after a period without incoming web requests. A bot makes outgoing connections to Discord but receives no web requests, so it gets put to sleep.
- Keep-alive pings: the popular workaround is adding a small web server to the bot and pinging it from an uptime monitor. It can work, but it relies on behaviour the platform may treat as abuse or simply stop allowing.
- Usage caps: monthly hour or credit limits can run out before the month does.
Things to watch with any free host
- Your token. Only put it somewhere you trust, and never in code you upload publicly. See keeping your token safe.
- Shared IP addresses. Many free users on one address can hit Discord's rate limits, which then affects your bot.
- No backups. If the free service deletes your app, your files may be gone.
When paying is worth it
If people rely on your bot, a few dollars a month buys you something free options rarely give together: no sleeping, restart on crash, a console to see what went wrong, and backups, without running the server yourself.
SnowServers' Flurry plan is $3 a month with a 7-day free trial, so you can check it runs your bot before paying anything. The discord.py hosting guide covers getting a bot ready for any host, free or paid.