Free Web Hosting for Nigerian Students — Deploy Your First App (₦0 Free Tier)

If you're learning to code in Nigeria — bootcamp, university, or self-taught — one thing hits early: hosting costs money in dollars. Vercel, Render, Railway. They're great. They bill in USD. That ₦30 spent on airtime is one thing; a $20/month hosting bill is another conversation entirely.

OneBit Deploy has a ₦0/month free tier. No credit card. No FX. No drama. Here's what you get and how to go live in under five minutes.

What you get at ₦0/month

OneBit's free tier is real — not a 14-day trial with a countdown clock:

Node.js apps — Express, Fastify, NestJS, whatever you're building in class or on your own
Static sites — plain HTML, React (built), Vite, anything that compiles to static files
GitHub integration — push to deploy, automatically, every time
A live URL — shareable with your bootcamp cohort, lecturers, or your next employer

Note: ₦0 means ₦0. No card on file required to start.

What the free tier does not include

No managed Postgres — use a free external database (Neon or Supabase free tier) until you're ready to upgrade
Single region — fine for a portfolio or class project
No .ng domain included — you get a free subdomain; a .ng domain is a separate purchase at domain.onebit.ng and can be attached to your app on any plan, Free included
Free apps sleep after 15 minutes without traffic and wake on the first request — Starter (₦10,000/month) keeps an app always-on

Step-by-step: deploy your first Node.js app

1. Make sure your app runs locally

Your app should start with npm start. OneBit looks for the start script in your package.json:

{ "scripts": { "start": "node index.js" } }

2. Push your code to GitHub

git init && git add . && git commit -m "first commit" && gh repo create my-app --public --push

No GitHub CLI? Create the repo at github.com and push manually.

Go to https://deploy.onebit.ng?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=free-student — email and password only. No card required.

4. Connect your GitHub repo

On Apps, press Add app, open GitHub account, press Connect GitHub, pick your repo and press Import, then Deploy.

5. Push to deploy

git push origin main

Your app goes live in about 2 minutes with a shareable URL.

What to build first

Portfolio site — HTML/CSS/JS or React built with Vite. If you are job-hunting, this is the first link a recruiter opens.

REST API — Express with a few routes. "Here is the running URL" beats ten GitHub links in an interview.

Next.js app — Next.js works on OneBit. Free tier handles rendering; you provide the data layer.

When you outgrow free

Starter plan: ₦10,000/month — your app stays always-on, with 1 vCPU and 10 GB storage. Hobby plan: ₦30,000/month — adds managed Postgres, more apps and memory. Billed in naira, Paystack. No FX. No year lock-in. (A .ng domain is bought separately at domain.onebit.ng.)

Start now

Deploy your first app for free: https://deploy.onebit.ng?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=free-student

OneBit Deploy — built for Nigerian developers. Naira pricing, Paystack settlement, .ng domains.