Master

categories/communication.md

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+# Communication APIs
+
+> Messaging, video, voice, and real-time communication APIs with free tiers.
+
+| Service | Free Tier | Limits | Rate Limits | Verified | Link |
+|---------|-----------|--------|-------------|----------|------|
+| Agora | 10,000 free minutes/month | Audio and video calling; HD video at $3.99/1K min after free tier | Free minutes apply per account; tiered discounts at 100K+ min/month | ✅ 2026-04 | [agora.io/pricing](https://www.agora.io/en/pricing/) |
+| Ably | Free plan (permanent) | 6M messages/month, 200 peak connections, no credit card required | No time limit on free tier; messages counted by publish + delivery | ✅ 2026-04 | [ably.com/pricing](https://ably.com/pricing) |
+| Daily.co | Free plan (permanent) | 10,000 participant-minutes/month, no credit card required | 1-day log retention on free tier (3 days with card on file); HD video included | ✅ 2026-04 | [daily.co/pricing](https://www.daily.co/pricing/video-sdk/) |
+| Pusher Channels | Sandbox plan (permanent) | 100 concurrent connections, 200,000 messages/day | Daily message cap resets at midnight UTC; not suited for production workloads | ✅ 2026-04 | [pusher.com/channels/pricing](https://pusher.com/channels/pricing/) |
+| Stream | Free for teams <5 members & <$10K revenue | Maker plan: $100/month free credit; Build plan: 100 MAU for dev/prototype only | Media transfer billed separately (~$0.12/GB); not intended for production on free tier | ✅ 2026-04 | [getstream.io/chat/pricing](https://getstream.io/chat/pricing/) |
+| Sendbird | Developer plan (permanent) | 100 MAU, 10 peak concurrent connections, unlimited messages, all Pro features | No credit card required; 30-day trial available for 1,000 MAU with Pro features | ✅ 2026-04 | [sendbird.com/pricing/chat](https://sendbird.com/pricing/chat) |
+| Twilio | Trial credit only (not permanent) | $15 one-time trial credit; SMS prefixed with trial notice, calls to verified numbers only | **Trial only** -- no permanent free tier; pay-as-you-go after credit consumed | ✅ 2026-04 | [twilio.com/pricing](https://www.twilio.com/en-us/pricing) |
+| Vonage | Trial credit only (not permanent) | $10 free credit for Video API; free credits for other APIs (amounts vary) | **Trial only** -- no permanent free tier; usage-based pricing after credit consumed | ✅ 2026-04 | [vonage.com/communications-apis/pricing](https://www.vonage.com/communications-apis/pricing/) |
+
+## Notes
+
+- **Agora** and **Daily.co** are the most generous for video/voice with 10K free minutes/month each, permanently.
+- **Ably** offers the best permanent free tier for real-time pub/sub messaging (6M messages/month).
+- **Pusher** free tier is capped daily (200K messages/day) rather than monthly, which is unusual -- plan around daily spikes.
+- **Twilio** and **Vonage** are listed for completeness but only offer one-time trial credits, not permanent free tiers.
+- **Stream** free tier is restricted to small teams (<5 people, <$10K revenue) -- verify eligibility before relying on it.
+- **Sendbird** Developer plan is permanent but limited to 100 MAU, making it dev/prototype only.

categories/iaas.md

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+# Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
+
+> Cloud infrastructure free tiers from major providers.
+
+| Service | Free Tier | Limits | Rate Limits | Verified | Link |
+|---------|-----------|--------|-------------|----------|------|
+| Oracle Cloud Always Free | Permanent free tier (most generous) | 4 ARM Ampere A1 cores, 24 GB RAM (split across up to 4 VMs), 2 AMD VMs (1/8 OCPU + 1 GB each), 200 GB block storage, 10 TB/month outbound, 2 autonomous databases | ARM instances may face capacity constraints in popular regions due to high demand | ✅ 2026-04 | [oracle.com/cloud/free](https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/) |
+| GCP Always Free | Permanent free tier | 1 e2-micro VM (2 vCPU shared, 1 GB RAM) in us-west1/central1/east1, 5 GB Cloud Storage, 1 TB BigQuery queries/month, 2M Cloud Functions invocations, 180K vCPU-seconds Cloud Run, 120 build-min/day | Billing account required but no charges within limits; limits shared across all projects per billing account | ✅ 2026-04 | [cloud.google.com/free](https://cloud.google.com/free) |
+| AWS Always Free | Permanent free tier (30+ services) | Lambda: 1M invocations + 400K GB-sec/month, DynamoDB: 25 GB, S3: 5 GB, CloudFront: 1 TB + 10M requests, SNS: 1M publishes | No free compute (EC2) on always-free tier; EC2 t2.micro is 12-month trial only | ✅ 2026-04 | [aws.amazon.com/free](https://aws.amazon.com/free/) |
+| AWS 12-Month Free | 12-month trial (new accounts) | EC2 t2.micro 750 hrs/month, RDS 750 hrs/month, S3 5 GB, ELB 750 hrs/month | **Expires after 12 months** -- converts to pay-as-you-go. Post-July 2025: new credit-based Free Plan ($200 credits) | ✅ 2026-04 | [aws.amazon.com/free](https://aws.amazon.com/free/) |
+| Azure Always Free | Permanent free tier (65+ services) | Functions: 1M executions/month, Blob Storage: 5 GB LRS, Cosmos DB: 1,000 RU/s + 25 GB, App Service: 10 web/mobile/API apps | No always-free VM; B1S VM is 12-month trial only. $200 credit for first 30 days on new accounts | ✅ 2026-04 | [azure.microsoft.com/pricing/free-services](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-services) |
+| Azure 12-Month Free | 12-month trial (new accounts) | B1S Linux VM 750 hrs/month, SQL Database, Blob Storage 5 GB, Bandwidth 15 GB | **Expires after 12 months** -- auto-converts to pay-as-you-go unless deprovisioned | ✅ 2026-04 | [azure.microsoft.com/pricing/free-services](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-services) |
+| IBM Cloud | Lite plan (permanent, 40+ services) | Watson APIs free tier, Cloud Functions, Cloudant (lite), Db2 (lite), Object Storage (25 GB) | Quota resets monthly; hitting quota suspends service for remainder of month. $200 credit for 30 days on new Pay-as-you-go accounts | ✅ 2026-04 | [ibm.com/cloud/free](https://www.ibm.com/products/cloud/free) |
+| Hetzner | No free tier | **No permanent free tier.** Referral programs may offer EUR 20 credit. Cheapest plan: EUR 3.49/month (CX23: 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM) | Not applicable -- included for completeness as frequently asked about | ✅ 2026-04 | [hetzner.com/cloud](https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/) |
+
+## Notes
+
+- **Oracle Cloud Always Free** is the clear winner for free compute: 4 ARM cores + 24 GB RAM permanently is unmatched by any other provider.
+- **GCP** is the only major provider offering a permanent free VM (e2-micro), though it is very small (1 GB RAM, shared CPU).
+- **AWS** does not offer any always-free compute -- the popular t2.micro is 12-month trial only. Post-July 2025, new accounts get a $200 credit-based Free Plan instead.
+- **Azure** similarly has no always-free VM; B1S is 12-month trial. Both AWS and Azure 12-month offers auto-convert to paid -- set billing alerts.
+- **IBM Cloud** Lite plan is permanent but limited; Watson AI APIs are the main draw.
+- **Hetzner** has no free tier but is included because it is frequently asked about. At EUR 3.49/month, it is the cheapest paid option for real compute.
+- For always-free production workloads, combine **Oracle Cloud** (compute + storage) with **AWS/GCP** (serverless functions + CDN).

categories/translation.md

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+# Translation & i18n
+
+> Translation management, localization, and internationalization with free tiers.
+
+| Service | Free Tier | Limits | Rate Limits | Verified | Link |
+|---------|-----------|--------|-------------|----------|------|
+| Tolgee | Free plan (permanent) | 1,000 strings, 10,000 MT credits, self-hosted: free forever with no limits | 3 seats on cloud free plan; open-source, self-hostable | ✅ 2026-04 | [tolgee.io/pricing](https://tolgee.io/pricing) |
+| Crowdin | Free plan (permanent) | 60,000 hosted words, 1 private project, 1 integration, Crowdin AI included | Open-source projects: apply for unlimited free plan (unlimited projects, strings, members) | ✅ 2026-04 | [crowdin.com/pricing](https://crowdin.com/pricing) |
+| Weblate | Free for libre/open-source projects (hosted); free self-hosted | Self-hosted: unlimited, fully open-source (GPL). Hosted: free for OSI-licensed projects | Paid hosted plans start at EUR 19/month for proprietary projects | ✅ 2026-04 | [weblate.org/hosting](https://weblate.org/en/hosting/) |
+| POEditor | Free plan (permanent) | 1,000 strings, unlimited projects, 5 users per organization | Free trial (10 days): 30,000 strings; OSI-licensed open-source projects: free with no limits | ✅ 2026-04 | [poeditor.com/pricing](https://poeditor.com/pricing/) |
+| Transifex | Free for qualifying open-source only | OSI-approved open-source projects: unlimited words, no string limits. No free plan for commercial use | 15-day full-feature trial; open-source must have no funding/revenue/commercialization | ✅ 2026-04 | [transifex.com/pricing](https://www.transifex.com/pricing) |
+| Lokalise | Free plan (permanent) | 500K hosted words, 1 user | 14-day trial with Enterprise features; free plan for individuals/small projects only | ✅ 2026-04 | [lokalise.com/pricing](https://lokalise.com/pricing/) |
+| Phrase | 14-day trial only (not permanent) | **No permanent free tier** -- trial includes Enterprise features; paid plans start at ~$27/month | Trial only -- not suitable for permanent free usage | ✅ 2026-04 | [phrase.com/pricing](https://phrase.com/pricing/) |
+
+## Notes
+
+- **Tolgee** and **Weblate** are both open-source and can be self-hosted for free with no limits -- best options for full control.
+- **Crowdin** offers the most generous managed free tier for commercial projects (60K hosted words).
+- **Lokalise** recently restructured pricing (Nov 2025): switched from hosted keys to hosted words, renamed all plans.
+- **Transifex** free tier is exclusively for open-source projects with no funding -- commercial projects must pay.
+- **Phrase** has no permanent free tier and is included for completeness only.
+- For open-source projects, **Crowdin**, **Weblate**, **POEditor**, and **Transifex** all offer unlimited free usage.