the broke hobbyist stack

the test for this stack is simple: could you build and run this side project for a year without ever entering a credit card number? every tool here passes. that rules out a lot of otherwise-good tools whose "free tier" is a thirty-day countdown.

the unfair advantage of being broke is that you're forced toward boring, well-supported defaults instead of chasing whatever's trending — and boring defaults are usually right for a side project anyway. you don't need the fanciest vector database for a project that has twelve users, one of whom is your mom.

if the project takes off, every tool on this list has a real paid tier waiting for you. that's the whole point — free to start, no migration required when it stops being a hobby.