Why Appish? A Public URL Without Learning Any Infrastructure

The real cost of the alternatives isn't money. It's learning.

Every option below can get your app online. Here's what each one asks you to understand first.

Appish

Free Docker hosting for demos, MCP servers & side projects

1 docker push — your URL is live

New concepts to learn: zero. Your laptop can go to sleep.

Tunnels

ngrok, Cloudflare Tunnel

Install their agent
Create an account, get a token
Run the tunnel next to your app
Keep that machine awake — forever

The catch: the URL lives exactly as long as your laptop does. Great for debugging webhooks against code you're editing right now — that's their home turf, not ours.

PaaS

Railway, Render, Fly.io

Create an account
Connect a Git repository
Learn how their build works
Write / debug their config format

The catch: built around Git-driven deploys, build pipelines, and platform config. If your project needs all that machinery, the setup time pays off. If you just need your build online, it buys you nothing.

Clouds

Azure Web Apps, AWS, Google Cloud

Subscription & billing setup
Resource groups, service plans, tiers
Deployment pipelines
…and the next twenty concepts

The catch: infinitely capable, but it's not a tool — it's a profession. If you already speak cloud, you don't need us. If you don't, a demo is not the reason to start.

AI app builders

Lovable, Replit, v0

Build your app inside their editor
Hosting is included — genuinely zero effort

The catch: they host what you build on their platform. The agent, bot, or MCP server you built locally with Claude Code or Cursor doesn't fit that box — and that's exactly the box Appish is for.

Pick by what you're doing tonight

The honest routing table. We're the right answer for some of these — not all.

Show a working demo to a client or a friend today → Appish

Put the MCP server or bot you built with Claude Code / Cursor online → Appish

Add a live demo link to your README → Appish

Give a side project a permanent home — a landing page, a portfolio, a bot → Appish paid slot

Debug webhooks against code you're editing right now → ngrok

You're building inside Lovable or Replit anyway → their hosting

Ship a production app with a database, CI and a custom domain → Railway / Fly.io / a VPS

Corporate compliance, private networking, SLAs → Azure / AWS

Side by side

	Appish	Tunnels ngrok, CF Tunnel	PaaS Railway, Fly, Render	Clouds Azure, AWS, GCP	AI builders Lovable, Replit, v0
Time to first URL	~30 seconds	Minutes	15–30 minutes	Hours	Built in
New concepts to learn	None	A couple	Their config & build model	A profession	Their whole editor
Works while your laptop sleeps	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Any language, any Docker image	Yes	Yes	Mostly	Yes	No — their stack
Git repo or config files required	No	No	Usually	Yes	n/a
Production apps	Small & simple — paid slots	No	Yes, any size	Yes, any size	Small apps

When Appish is the wrong tool

We'd rather tell you now than disappoint you later. Don't put these on Appish:

Databases and persistent storage. Containers are ephemeral here — state won't survive a redeploy.
High traffic or anything with an SLA. That's a job for autoscaling infrastructure.
Compliance-sensitive data. Use infrastructure you control and can audit.

For those — use a PaaS, a cloud, or your own server. For everything else, Appish is the URL for what you built tonight — and a paid slot keeps it online long after tonight.

Push an image. Get a URL.

And get on with your evening.

Start for free

You already knowhow to deploy here