6 free alternatives to Tugboat

DeployHQ's free plan gives you a different kind of deployment workflow for small projects. Free includes 3 deployments per day, 1 project, 5 servers, 1 concurrent deployment, 30 build minutes, 1 user, auto-deploy on push, zero downtime deployments, API access, custom domains, team management, and deploys behind firewalls. It is still capped, but the shape is more deployment-ops oriented than preview-environment oriented. It beats Tugboat on deployment control and server targeting, while falling short on preview-centric features like unlimited previews and built-in shell access. Switch if you need simple automated deployments rather than per-PR environments.

• Beats Tugboat: More deployment-target flexibility and ops features like servers, zero downtime deploys, and firewall deployments.
• Falls short: Far less preview-environment capacity, with just 3 deployments per day and 1 project.
• Who should switch: Switch to DeployHQ if your main need is automated deployment management, not PR preview hosting.

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Buddy's free plan covers solo CI/CD use with 1 seat, 1 concurrent pipeline, 300 pipeline GB-minutes, 1 GB of pipeline cache, 300 sandbox CPU-minutes, and 730 sandbox GB-hours. It is built more like a DevOps suite than a preview host, so the free tier is useful when your bottleneck is pipeline execution rather than staging environment size. Buddy beats Tugboat on pipeline-oriented workflow breadth, especially around compute-style quotas for builds and sandboxes. It falls short on Tugboat's unlimited users and unlimited previews, and it is a worse fit if your team wants every pull request to spin up a browsable website. Switch if your work centers on CI pipelines and test automation.

• Beats Tugboat: Better fit for CI pipeline workloads and sandbox compute quotas.
• Falls short: Only 1 seat and 1 concurrent pipeline, so it scales less for collaborative preview use.
• Who should switch: Switch to Buddy if you care more about pipelines and build execution than review-site previews.

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Deployment's free tier is broad on product surface area, even though the page does not give a concrete resource ceiling. Free includes 1 user account, up to 10 jobs per month, unlimited static sites, unlimited web services, unlimited repositories, unlimited environments, custom domains with HTTPS, build and application logs, Slack notifications, automatic deployments on git push, automatic previews on pull requests, RBAC, AI-powered DevOps assistant, and community support. It beats Tugboat on the number of included environments and the presence of static sites and web services, but it loses on known, explicit resource quotas because the page does not expose a storage, RAM, or CPU allowance. Switch if you want a wide self-serve free entry point and can work within job limits.

• Beats Tugboat: Broader free feature set for web services, static sites, and environments.
• Falls short: No explicit storage, RAM, or CPU quota is stated, so the free ceiling is less concrete.
• Who should switch: Switch to Deployment if you need unlimited-style surface area more than a clearly sized preview environment.

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GitLab Free includes source code management and CI/CD access, up to 5 licensed users, 400 compute minutes per month, 10 GiB storage per project, and no included GitLab Duo Agent Platform credits. It is a solid fit when repository hosting and pipelines should live together in one place. GitLab beats Tugboat on source control integration and gives a much clearer compute budget for CI work, while it falls short on Tugboat's unlimited previews and built-in review-environment workflow. It also does not provide the same shell-access-first preview host experience. Switch if your main need is code hosting plus CI within one platform.

• Beats Tugboat: Stronger source-code management and a larger named compute budget for CI.
• Falls short: Not a preview-environment product, so it lacks Tugboat's unlimited previews and shell-first workflow.
• Who should switch: Switch to GitLab if you want code hosting and CI together more than hosted review environments.

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Railway's free offering is a 30-day trial with $5 credits, plus up to 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB RAM per service, 0.5 GB of volume storage, and community support. It is a trial rather than a permanent free plan, but it gives you an app-hosting workflow with repository deployment, Docker support, preview environments, rollbacks, secrets management, and usage-based scaling afterward. It beats Tugboat on how naturally it fits full app hosting and service networking, but it falls short on being ongoing free access and on the amount of free time you get before payment kicks in. Switch if you need to trial a hosted app platform first.

• Beats Tugboat: More app-hosting oriented, with preview environments, Docker support, and rollout tooling.
• Falls short: Only a 30-day trial with $5 credits, so it is less durable than Tugboat's ongoing free tier.
• Who should switch: Switch to Railway if you want hosted app deployment and can accept a time-limited trial.

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Mergify's free plan is centered on merge automation for GitHub repositories. It includes up to 5 users on private repositories, CI Insights, Test Insights, Merge Queue, Merge Protections, email support, 24/7 Premium Support, Slack Connect Support Channel, a Dedicated Customer Success Manager, and on-premise deployment. It beats Tugboat on code-review workflow depth and merge automation, and it is much better if your bottleneck is PR handling rather than environment hosting. It falls short on any staging infrastructure: there is no storage, RAM, CPU, or preview-environment allowance comparable to Tugboat. Switch if you need to automate merges and test gating more than host preview sites.

• Beats Tugboat: Much deeper pull-request and merge automation for GitHub workflows.
• Falls short: No preview-environment resources at all, so it does not replace Tugboat's hosted review apps.
• Who should switch: Switch to Mergify if your main problem is merge automation, not deployment previews.

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