Is Serverless Making a Comeback?
If you remember regularly finding a tempting server rental deal, today's prices can make running a small project feel expensive. When the next bargain is harder to find, it is worth asking whether every website still needs an always-on server of its own.
AI infrastructure is part of the pressure. Netcup points to growing demand from major cloud providers as a reason RAM and flash storage have become more expensive. Energy, cooling, security, and staffing also contribute. Smaller providers face these costs alongside giants that already have enormous infrastructure footprints. If those pressures persist, further adjustments may follow.
That could give serverless renewed appeal. The servers still exist, but the provider operates them, and your application uses managed compute, storage, and databases. For a lightly used project, that can replace a fixed monthly rental with a much smaller bill—or no hosting bill at all.
Shop around for mature infrastructure
Look beyond CPU cores and RAM. Companies that have spent a decade or two building infrastructure may bundle capabilities that would take time and money to reproduce: global content delivery networks, caching, TLS certificates, DDoS protection, and managed storage. Cloudflare launched in 2010 and now serves millions of customers. Its established scale is a reason to compare its services with renting another box.
Also check how existing and new customers are treated. Netcup's September announcement protects existing contracts while changing new-order prices. New revenue might help sustain cheaper legacy contracts, but that possible cross-subsidy cannot be established from the price difference alone. Older hardware and earlier procurement costs can also explain the gap. Either way, yesterday's recommendation may no longer describe today's offer.
Specialist services deserve a look too. BorgBase's starter plan provides 250 GB for $30 annually, equivalent to $2.50 a month, with no transfer or API charges. Storing 250 GB in Amazon S3 Standard in US East costs about $5.75 monthly before requests, transfers, or credits. That makes BorgBase roughly half the raw storage cost. It hosts Borg and Restic backup repositories, so compare it as a remote backup service rather than a general object store. BorgBase's prices exclude applicable taxes.
A light dapp can fit inside the free tiers
Consider a small token dashboard. Its single-page application, or SPA, runs in the browser. Cloudflare Pages or Workers Static Assets delivers its HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. A Worker handles small API requests, D1 stores off-chain metadata, and R2 stores images or files.
The current free allowances are substantial:
| Service | Included usage |
|---|---|
| Pages and Workers Static Assets | Free, unlimited static requests when they do not invoke Functions or Worker code. |
| Workers and Pages Functions | A shared 100,000 requests daily; Workers Free allows 10 ms CPU per invocation. |
| D1 | 5 million rows read and 100,000 written daily; 5 GB total storage, with a 500 MB maximum per free database. |
| R2 Standard | 10 GB-month storage, 1 million Class A operations and 10 million Class B operations monthly; zero egress fees. |
Unlimited SPA traffic means unlimited static delivery, not unlimited backend execution. Indexed database queries and cached responses help conserve allowances; D1 counts rows scanned, not merely rows returned. R2 requires subscription activation and bills usage beyond its free allowance.
Keep independent projects and their resources clearly separated. Account allowances are shared across projects within that account. Cloudflare explicitly supports up to five additional Free accounts for eligible users, making legitimate project or client separation practical. A dedicated account can make a project's budget easier to understand. Treat this as organization, not a way to split one busy application across accounts to evade limits. Upgrade when a project outgrows the generous allowance.
Cloudflare’s entry-level options are:
| Service | Entry cost | Included usage or rates |
|---|---|---|
| Pages and Workers Static Assets | No upgrade needed for static delivery | Static asset requests remain free and unlimited. |
| Workers and Pages Functions | Workers Paid starts at $5 per account per month | Includes 10 million requests and 30 million CPU milliseconds per month. |
| D1 | Included with Workers Paid | Includes 25 billion rows read and 50 million rows written per month, plus 5 GB of storage. |
| R2 Standard | Separate usage-based billing | Beyond free allowances: $0.015 per GB-month of storage, $4.50 per million Class A operations, and $0.36 per million Class B operations. Egress remains free. |
Workers and D1 usage above their included allowances is also metered.
The future of self hosting
Self hosting still has a place when control, privacy, or a steady workload makes running your own server worthwhile. Serverless offers a practical way for more people to take part in Web3. Lightweight, open-source dapp frontends can be cloned and hosted through providers with global CDNs, making independent copies inexpensive to maintain and easy to reach. Hosting those copies across different providers reduces reliance on a single website and can make legitimate applications harder to censor. For people facing the cost of hosting without identity checks, free serverless tiers offer an accessible way to contribute. As privacy becomes more precious, decentralization can grow through people proactively signing up, hosting their own copies, and keeping the applications they use available.
