The $0 Cloud Stack: Running a Real Media Site on Azure and Google Cloud Free Tiers

Most “Azure vs Google Cloud” articles are written by people who run neither in production. They paraphrase the pricing pages and call it a comparison.

We do something different: we run the same media property on both clouds at the same time — and the entire thing costs $0/month. Google Cloud is the live operational stack. Azure is a parallel “newsroom” of always-free services running on a dedicated lab domain, tygart.media, mirroring each capability of the live site. Two clouds, one operation, both AI ecosystems watching it work.

This is the desk-by-desk breakdown — what each cloud actually does for us, where the free tier runs out, and which one wins each specific job. No theory. This is the running system.

Why run on both clouds at once

There’s a strategic reason beyond “free is fun.” Search and AI assistants don’t share a brain. Google’s models optimize for Google’s index; Microsoft’s Copilot and Bing optimize for Microsoft’s graph. When ~84% of your organic traffic comes from Bing, having your stack only inside Google’s telemetry is a blind spot.

Running enrichment through Azure puts the same content inside Microsoft’s service graph the same way Google Cloud puts it inside Google’s. You stop guessing how each ecosystem sees you, because you’re operating inside both.

The serverless compute plane

The heart of the stack: code that runs after you push a file and close the laptop.

How we do it

Azure

Google Cloud

Verdict

Service

Azure Functions

Cloud Run

Cloud Run for containers; Functions for glue

Free ceiling

1M requests/month

2M requests/month

Google, on raw headroom

Deploy model

Functions Core Tools / GitHub Actions

Keyless deploy via Workload Identity Federation

Google — no stored keys is a real security win

What surprised us

Generous, but watch billable side resources

Cold starts negligible at our scale

—

Our bill

$0

$0

Tie where it counts

Pick Cloud Run if you’re already containerized and want keyless CI/CD. Pick Azure Functions if your automation lives in the Microsoft ecosystem and you want Logic Apps next door.

The content enrichment desks

This is where Azure’s always-free tier quietly outclasses expectations — a full newsroom of AI services that never bill at our volume.

How we do it

Job

Azure

Google Cloud

Verdict

Translation

Translator — 2M chars/mo free (~300 articles)

Cloud Translation

Azure — bigger perpetual free ceiling

Article audio

Neural TTS — 500K chars/mo

Cloud Text-to-Speech

Toss-up; both natural

Entity extraction (for GEO)

AI Language — 5K records/mo

Cloud Natural Language

Azure — likely the same signal family Bing uses

Site search

Azure AI Search — 3 indexes free

Vertex AI Search

Azure — it’s the engine behind Bing

The entity-extraction line matters most. We feed articles through Azure AI Language to pull named entities and key phrases, then saturate the content with them. We’re optimizing for the same entity signals Microsoft’s own systems use to select content — which is the whole game when Bing drives most of your traffic.

The storage and front-end layer

How we do it

Job

Azure

Google Cloud

Verdict

Document store

Cosmos DB — 1,000 RU/s + 25GB free

Firestore

Azure — Cosmos free tier is generous (one per subscription)

Relational

Azure SQL — serverless free

Cloud SQL (no perpetual free)

Azure, clearly

Static hosting

Static Web Apps — 100GB bandwidth

Firebase Hosting

Tie; both excellent

For a small operations ledger or a knowledge base, Azure’s always-free Cosmos DB and serverless SQL are the standout — Google Cloud has no equivalent perpetual-free relational tier.

What it actually costs: nothing (if you’re disciplined)

The honest caveat: free compute can still trigger billable side resources. A “free” VM drags along disks, public IPs, and monitoring logs that bill immediately with no throttling. The discipline that keeps the bill at zero:

1. Deploy from the free-services blade, not the general catalog.

2. Set a budget alert on day one — before you provision anything.

3. Prefer serverless over VMs — the consumption tiers reset monthly and don’t drag side resources.

4. One Cosmos DB free tier per subscription — plan around it.

Do that, and a real, AI-enriched media property runs across two clouds for $0.

The takeaway

Single-cloud is a bet that one ecosystem’s view of your content is the only one that matters. When the traffic data says otherwise — when most of your readers arrive through the other company’s search and AI — bilateral cloud stops being a novelty and becomes the obvious posture. The free tiers make it cost nothing but discipline.

Frequently asked questions

Is it really free to run on both Azure and Google Cloud?
Yes, at small-site scale. Both clouds offer always-free serverless tiers (Azure Functions 1M requests/month, Cloud Run 2M requests/month) plus free AI, storage, and hosting services. The cost risk is billable side resources like VM disks and public IPs — avoidable by staying serverless and setting a budget alert.

Which is better for serverless, Azure or Google Cloud?
Cloud Run wins on raw request headroom (2M vs 1M/month) and keyless deploys via Workload Identity Federation. Azure Functions wins if your automation already lives in the Microsoft ecosystem and benefits from Logic Apps and Event Grid next door.

Why would you run the same site on two clouds?
AI ecosystems don’t share telemetry. Google’s models favor Google’s index; Bing and Copilot favor Microsoft’s graph. If a large share of your traffic comes from Bing, running enrichment through Azure puts your content inside Microsoft’s service graph instead of leaving it a blind spot.

Does Azure have a better free tier than Google Cloud?
For perpetual always-free services, Azure is broader — 65+ always-free services including Cosmos DB (1,000 RU/s + 25GB) and serverless Azure SQL, which Google Cloud has no direct perpetual-free equivalent for. Google Cloud wins on serverless request volume and keyless security.

What’s the catch with Azure’s always-free tier?
Limits reset monthly and overages bill immediately with no throttling. Free VMs also trigger billable disks, public IPs, and monitoring logs. Deploy from the free-services blade, prefer serverless, and set a budget alert before provisioning.