Encore Cloud
Built-in development cloud for Encore backends, free for dev and limited-scale commercial apps with no card and no per-seat fee.
- Card required
- No
Encore Cloud scores 2.9/10 for free value in Apps. The main constraint: Free forever (email only) per application: 100,000 requests/day, 1 GB database storage, 1 GB object storage, 100,000 Pub/Sub messages/day, hourly cron jobs, plus 2 dev environments, 1M trace events/month, 7-day log retention and 1 concurrent build.
Free value score
2.9 / 10Show the math
Key metrics
What you get
No credit card required — sign up with just an email; free forever
Generous Fair Use limits: 100k requests/day, 1 GB DB + 1 GB object storage, 100k Pub/Sub messages/day
Apps are never auto-killed at limits — the team reaches out to find a solution
No lock-in: deploy to your own AWS/GCP later via Encore's IaC, or export a standalone Docker image
Gotchas
- 100,000 requests/day
Each application is limited to 100,000 HTTP requests per day under Fair Use.
- 1 GB database storage
Each application gets 1 GB of managed Postgres database storage on Encore Cloud.
- 1 GB object storage
Each application gets 1 GB of object (bucket) storage on Encore Cloud.
- 100,000 Pub/Sub messages/day
Each application is limited to 100,000 Pub/Sub messages per day.
- Cron jobs at most hourly
Cron jobs can run at most once every hour on the free development cloud.
- 2 cloud environments
Free plan is limited to 2 dev environments on Encore Cloud; more requires the Pro plan.
- 1M trace events/month
Distributed tracing includes 1,000,000 events per month on the free plan.
- 7-day log & trace retention
Logs and traces are retained for 7 days on the free plan (no guaranteed retention).
- 1 concurrent build
Free plan allows only 1 concurrent CI/CD build; multiple concurrent builds require Pro.
- No custom domains
Custom domains are a Pro-plan feature; not available on the free plan.
- No per-PR preview environments
Preview Environments per pull request are only available on the Pro plan.
- No own-cloud (AWS/GCP) automation
Deploying to and automating your own AWS/GCP account requires the paid Pro plan; the free plan only hosts on Encore Cloud.
- Limited commercial use only
Commercial use is permitted only under Fair Use — limited load with no SLA. No warranty; not intended for large-scale business-critical workloads.
- Prohibited workload types
Never Fair Use: proxies/VPNs, media hot-linking, scrapers, crypto mining, CPU-intensive APIs (e.g. machine learning), and load testing.
Sources
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"Requests | 100,000 / day ... Database Storage | 1 GB ... PubSub Messages | 100,000 / day ... Cron Jobs | Once every hour ... Object Storage | 1 GB"
https://encore.dev/docs/platform/management/usage -
"We will never charge you for usage of Encore Cloud unless expressly agreed in advance."
https://encore.dev/docs/platform/management/usage -
"Free forever ... All you need is an email. ... Free dev environments on Encore Cloud (Fair use) | 2 ... Distributed tracing | 1M events / month included ... Logs & trace retention | 7 days ... Concurrent builds | 1"
https://encore.dev/pricing -
"The company has raised $4M in pre-seed funding, led by Crane Venture Partners."
https://encore.dev/press
