Free Discord Bot Hosting: What You Actually Get
An honest look at free Discord bot hosting — what a good free tier includes, the limits to expect, what runs well on it, and how to tell a real free plan from a trap.
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“Free bot hosting” means very different things depending on who’s offering it. Some free plans are genuine small servers that run your bot 24/7. Others are trials in disguise, web platforms that put your bot to sleep, or services that make money in ways you’d rather not discover later. This article explains what a real free tier looks like, using Kerit Cloud’s as a concrete example, and how to judge any free offer.
What a good free tier includes
At minimum, a free plan worth using gives you:
- A process that never sleeps. Discord bots hold a permanent gateway connection. Any plan that suspends idle processes will take your bot offline.
- Real resources, stated clearly. Exact RAM, CPU and storage numbers — not “shared resources” or “fair use”.
- Automatic restarts. Crashes happen; a supervisor should bring the bot back within seconds.
- Persistent storage. Files and databases that survive restarts and redeploys.
- No trial timer and no card. If it expires after 30 days or needs a card “just in case”, it’s a trial, not a free plan.
Kerit Cloud’s free tier, specifically
| Resource | Free plan |
|---|---|
| CPU | 30% of an AMD EPYC core |
| RAM | 256 MB |
| Storage | 2 GB NVMe |
| Bandwidth | 10 Gbps network |
| Database | Shared MySQL |
| DDoS protection | Layer 7, always on |
| Location | Virginia, US East |
| Discord WebSocket latency | Under 18 ms |
| Sleep mode | None — runs 24/7 |
| Card required | No |
| Time limit | None — free forever |
It runs on the same EPYC hardware and NVMe storage as paid plans, with the same Layer 7 DDoS protection. Supported runtimes include Node.js 16–22, Python 3.9–3.12, Java 11/17/21, Go, Bun and Deno.
The free tier is provided on a best-effort basis: it isn’t covered by the SLA’s service credits, which apply to paid plans. For a hobby project that’s a fair trade; for a bot your community depends on, it’s the main reason to move to a paid plan eventually.
What runs well in 256 MB
More than most people expect. These are typical idle figures measured on real bots:
| Bot | Library | Typical memory | Fits? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moderation bot, ~10 servers | discord.js | ~95 MB | Yes |
| Utility bot with slash commands | discord.py | ~110 MB | Yes |
| Telegram bot on long polling | aiogram | ~70 MB | Yes |
| Economy or levels bot with MySQL | Node.js | ~140 MB | Yes |
| Music bot with a voice client | Any | 300 MB+ | No |
Single-purpose bots in a handful of servers fit comfortably. Music bots, bots in 50+ servers and anything that caches heavily need more — they belong on a paid plan such as Basic (512 MB) or Pro (1 GB). The details, and how to make your bot lean, are in what fits in 256 MB.
What “30% CPU” means in practice
CPU is allocated as a share of one core. 30% is plenty for a bot that mostly waits for events and answers commands, which is what most bots do. It becomes a limit for CPU-heavy work: image generation, audio processing, large data crunching, or startup in a very big bot. If your bot feels slow while its memory is fine, CPU is the likely ceiling. Free tier limits explained covers each resource in detail.
How to judge any free hosting offer
Whether you use us or someone else, ask these questions before trusting a free plan with your bot:
Does it sleep? Look for words like “idle”, “spin down”, “inactive after 30 minutes”. If the platform wakes on HTTP requests, it wasn’t built for bots.
Are the resources written down? A real plan lists RAM, CPU and storage. Vague promises usually mean heavy overselling.
Is it a trial? Free credits that run out, “free for 30 days”, or a card requirement all mean you’ll be paying — or migrating — soon.
How does it make money? Honest answers include “upgrades when your bot grows” or “it’s marketing for our paid plans”. Be wary of free hosting with no visible business model, forced ads in your bot, or terms that grant rights to your code or data.
What happens to your data? Can you download your files? Is storage persistent across restarts?
Is there protection? Free bots get attacked too. DDoS protection on free plans is a good sign that the infrastructure is shared with paying customers rather than a neglected corner.
We wrote a longer guide on this: the hidden costs of free bot hosting.
Why a host would give this away
It’s a fair question, and the honest answer is simple: the free tier is how most of our paying customers first found us. You get a small but real server; we get the chance to earn your business when your bot grows enough to need more. There’s no catch hidden in the terms, no ads injected into your bot, and no rights claimed over your code — you keep full ownership of what you build.
Getting started
Claiming a free server takes about three minutes:
- Join the Kerit Cloud Discord server.
- Register on the panel using the link shared there — no card, no email verification hoops.
- Create a server, choose the Free plan, upload your code and press Start.
The full walkthrough, with tips for the first deploy, is in how to claim your free server.
When you’ll outgrow it
Plan to upgrade when:
- memory sits above roughly 70% of 256 MB most of the time,
- your bot joins a lot of servers or starts caching heavily,
- you add music, image generation or other CPU-heavy features,
- or people start depending on it and you want backups and an SLA.
Upgrades happen in place with one click — your files, database and environment variables stay put, and paid plans come with a 3-day money-back guarantee. When to upgrade from free to a paid plan goes through the signals.
Summary
A good free tier runs your bot 24/7 on clearly stated resources, restarts it automatically, keeps your files and doesn’t expire or ask for a card. Kerit Cloud’s gives you 256 MB of RAM, 30% of an EPYC core and 2 GB of NVMe in Virginia, with DDoS protection and no sleep mode — enough for most single-purpose bots. Judge any free offer by whether it sleeps, whether its limits are written down, and how it makes money.