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Yes, but you also really need Postgres and that's now an extra $9/month too.

$0 -> $16

Stop giving up, we tested several alternatives not too long ago and it's possible to get a small DB for free: https://nixsanctuary.com/best-paas-backend-hosting-heroku-vs...

Heroku Dyno + free cochroachdb instance, reasonable enough

I won't choose cockroachdb as a first learning DB, though it maybe fine (or overkill) for hobby project.