Finding genuinely free Telegram bot hosting — meaning no credit card, no sleep after inactivity, and actual 24/7 uptime — is harder than it sounds. Most platforms advertise a "free tier" that either sleeps your bot after a few minutes of inactivity or expires after a trial period.
This guide gives an honest comparison of the best options available in 2026, based on what actually matters for Telegram bot developers: uptime, ease of setup, and real free tier limits.
What to look for in free Telegram bot hosting
- No sleep / spin-down: Free tiers that pause your process after inactivity will drop your bot offline. Unacceptable for a bot with real users.
- Webhook support: Webhooks are faster and more efficient than polling. The best platforms handle webhook registration for you.
- No credit card: Truly free means no payment method required at signup.
- Restart on crash: Your bot process should auto-restart if it crashes, without manual intervention.
- Environment variables: Bot tokens and API keys should be stored securely, not hardcoded.
The platforms
1. NxCreate — Best for TelegrafJS / Node.js bots
Free forever, no sleep, no credit card.
NxCreate is purpose-built for Telegram bot hosting. The free Starter plan gives you 10 bot deployments per day with 24/7 uptime, automatic webhook registration, built-in environment variable management, crash restarts, and live analytics.
Setup time is under 5 minutes. You write just the bot logic in TelegrafJS; NxCreate handles the runtime, webhook URL, SSL, and process management.
Limits: 10 bots/day, 4s execution timeout per update, Node.js only (TelegrafJS).
Best for: TelegrafJS bots, beginners, side projects, production bots on the free tier.
2. Render — Best for Python bots (with workarounds)
Free tier, but sleeps after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Render's free tier spins down web services after 15 minutes of no incoming requests. For a webhook-based bot that gets regular traffic, this can be acceptable. For lower-traffic bots, you'll need an external ping service (e.g., UptimeRobot on a free plan) to send a health-check request every 10 minutes to keep it awake.
Limits: Sleeps after 15 min inactivity, 512 MB RAM, 750 compute hours/month (across all free services).
Best for: Python bots (aiogram, python-telegram-bot) with a keep-alive ping.
3. Railway — Not reliably free anymore
Railway's free tier now requires a $5 one-time verification and gives $5/month in credits. Once credits run out, services pause. Not truly free for ongoing hosting.
Best for: Short-term experiments during the trial period only.
4. Glitch — Too limited for real bots
Glitch spins down projects after 5 minutes of inactivity and has strict rate limits. You can use a ping service to work around this but it's unreliable. Not recommended for production bots.
5. Replit — Prototyping only
Replit's "Always On" feature requires a paid plan. The free tier sleeps aggressively. Useful for writing and testing bot code, not for hosting a live bot.
6. Oracle Cloud Free Tier — Most powerful, but complex
Oracle Cloud's Always Free tier includes two ARM VMs with 1 GB RAM each — permanently free. This is the most capable free option, but it requires setting up a Linux server, installing Node.js or Python, configuring a process manager (PM2), and managing SSL certificates for webhooks. Not beginner-friendly.
Best for: Developers comfortable with Linux server administration who need maximum control.
Comparison table
| Platform | Always free? | Sleeps? | Webhook auto-setup | Python support | Setup difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NxCreate | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ✅ Automatic | ⚠️ Node.js only | Easy |
| Render | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ 15 min | Manual | ✅ Yes | Medium |
| Railway | ❌ No | After credits | Manual | ✅ Yes | Medium |
| Glitch | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ 5 min | Manual | ⚠️ Limited | Easy |
| Replit | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Aggressive | Manual | ✅ Yes | Easy |
| Oracle Cloud | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | Manual | ✅ Yes | Hard |
Which should you use?
If your bot is written in TelegrafJS or you're starting fresh: use NxCreate. It's the only platform on this list with true 24/7 free hosting, automatic webhook management, and zero server setup — all without a credit card.
If you have an existing Python bot and don't want to migrate: use Render with a UptimeRobot ping. Set up a free UptimeRobot monitor pointing to your Render health-check URL every 10 minutes. This prevents the sleep spin-down and keeps your bot online.
If you need maximum control and are comfortable with Linux: use Oracle Cloud Free Tier. It's the most powerful option and truly permanent, but requires significantly more setup and maintenance.
Get started with NxCreate
Sign up at nxcreate.com — no credit card, free forever. Your first bot can be live in under 5 minutes.
