People using the free service should not kid themself. It will have less and less features with time , and it is 100% normal since people always abuse what's free. But between the FREE and the 50$ offer there should be a place for a 5$/10$ offer. I dont understand why these SaaS never offer an entry level paid offer. 50$/month is too much for students or freelancers who wants to test a project but need a contractual…
Yes, they should have $5 (or even $1) offer instead of free. I signed up with a lot of these PaaS services, but ended up with my own VPN (a promo from lowendbox). It's perfect for my development server and personal websites.
I assume you mean 'VPS' right? Anyway I'm curious as to what you use, I've heard good things about RamNode and Digital Ocean, but I've not yet tested, the only VPS provider I have experience with is Linode (two 512MB Linodes for a few years now)