Free Hosting Options

Crow can be deployed for free on several platforms. Here's how they compare:

Comparison

Provider	Compute	RAM	Storage	Bandwidth	Sleep?	Best For
Render (free tier)	Shared CPU	512 MB	Ephemeral	750 hrs/mo	Yes (15 min)	Trying Crow out
Oracle Cloud (Always Free)	1 OCPU (x86)	1 GB	47 GB	10 TB/mo	No	Permanent self-hosting
Raspberry Pi	4 cores	4-8 GB	SD/SSD	LAN only*	No	Home lab / Crow OS

* Raspberry Pi can be exposed to the internet via Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel.

Render + Turso (Quickest Start)

The fastest way to try Crow. Deploy in under 5 minutes with the included render.yaml.

Limits:

• 750 free hours/month (enough for one instance 24/7)
• Sleeps after 15 minutes of inactivity — first request after sleep takes ~30 seconds (cold start)
• Ephemeral disk — data resets on redeploy (that's why Turso is needed for persistence)

Turso free tier:

• 9 GB total storage
• 500 million row reads/month
• 25 million row writes/month

This is more than enough for personal use. A typical Crow installation uses <100 MB of database storage.

See the Cloud Deploy Guide for step-by-step instructions.

Oracle Cloud Always Free (Recommended for Permanent Hosting)

Oracle's Always Free tier includes a VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro instance — 1 OCPU and 1 GB RAM. It's modest but sufficient for a personal Crow gateway. It never sleeps and never expires.

TIP

Oracle also advertises an ARM A1 instance (4 OCPUs, 24 GB RAM) on the Always Free tier, but capacity is extremely limited — most regions are permanently full. The x86 Micro instance described here is reliably available.

Step 1: Create an Oracle Cloud Account

1. Go to cloud.oracle.com and sign up
2. You'll need a credit card for verification, but the Always Free tier is genuinely free — you won't be charged
3. Select your home region (closest to you for lowest latency)

Step 2: Provision a Micro Instance

1. Go to Compute > Instances > Create Instance
2. Image: Oracle Linux 9 or Ubuntu 22.04 (Minimal)
3. Shape: VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro (1 OCPU, 1 GB RAM) — this is the Always Free x86 shape
4. Networking: Create a VCN with a public subnet
5. SSH key: Upload your public key or let Oracle generate one
6. Click Create

Step 3: Connect and Install Prerequisites

# SSH into your instance
ssh -i ~/.ssh/your_key ubuntu@<public-ip>

# Update packages
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

# Install Node.js 20
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs

# Verify
node --version  # Should be 20.x
npm --version

Step 4: Install Crow

# Clone Crow
git clone https://github.com/kh0pper/crow.git ~/.crow/app
cd ~/.crow/app

# Run setup (installs deps + initializes SQLite database)
npm run setup

# Edit .env with your API keys
nano .env

No Turso needed — local SQLite works directly on Oracle's boot volume.

Step 5: Set Up HTTPS

You have two options for HTTPS:

Option A: Caddy + Domain (recommended if you have a domain)

# Install Caddy
sudo apt install -y debian-keyring debian-archive-keyring apt-transport-https
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/gpg.key' | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/caddy-stable-archive-keyring.gpg
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/debian.deb.txt' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/caddy-stable.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install caddy

# Configure reverse proxy
sudo tee /etc/caddy/Caddyfile > /dev/null << 'EOF'
crow.yourdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy localhost:3001
}
EOF

sudo systemctl restart caddy

Caddy automatically provisions Let's Encrypt certificates. Point your domain's DNS to the instance's public IP.

Option B: Cloudflare Tunnel (no domain needed)

# Install cloudflared
curl -L --output cloudflared.deb https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases/latest/download/cloudflared-linux-amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i cloudflared.deb

# Authenticate and create tunnel
cloudflared tunnel login
cloudflared tunnel create crow
cloudflared tunnel route dns crow crow.yourdomain.com

# Create config
mkdir -p ~/.cloudflared
cat > ~/.cloudflared/config.yml << EOF
tunnel: crow
credentials-file: /home/ubuntu/.cloudflared/<tunnel-id>.json
ingress:
  - hostname: crow.yourdomain.com
    service: http://localhost:3001
  - service: http_status:404
EOF

# Run as service
sudo cloudflared service install
sudo systemctl start cloudflared

Step 6: Security Hardening

# Enable firewall
sudo apt install -y ufw
sudo ufw default deny incoming
sudo ufw default allow outgoing
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp    # SSH
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp   # HTTPS
sudo ufw enable

# Install fail2ban for SSH protection
sudo apt install -y fail2ban
sudo systemctl enable --now fail2ban

Step 7: Create a systemd Service

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/crow-gateway.service > /dev/null << EOF
[Unit]
Description=Crow AI Platform Gateway
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=ubuntu
WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/.crow/app
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node servers/gateway/index.js
Restart=unless-stopped
RestartSec=5
Environment=NODE_ENV=production

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now crow-gateway

Step 8: Verify

# Check service status
sudo systemctl status crow-gateway

# Test locally
curl http://localhost:3001/health

# Test via HTTPS
curl https://crow.yourdomain.com/health

Visit https://crow.yourdomain.com/setup to see your integration status.

Raspberry Pi

For a dedicated home appliance, see the Raspberry Pi Setup Guide.

Paid Alternative

If you'd rather skip infrastructure management entirely, managed hosting gives you a pre-configured Crow instance for $5/mo (or $48/yr). No setup, no maintenance — just pick a username and connect your AI.

Which Should I Choose?

• Just trying Crow out? → Render + Turso. Deploy in 5 minutes, sleep behavior is fine for testing.
• Want a permanent free server? → Oracle Cloud. 1 GB RAM micro instance, never sleeps, never expires.
• Want a home appliance? → Raspberry Pi with Crow OS. Physical device on your network.
• Already have a server? → Follow the Oracle Cloud steps on any Linux VPS (skip steps 1-2).