https://netlify.com/ was mentioned for hosting projects for a portfolio, but I think they are for front end / static git repos only.
Anyone know of a good service to hold low traffic express back ends? If not I am thinking of learning AWS and converting my code to suit their platform (I have read Api Gateway & Lambda is their equivalent service)
I’ve been using heroku. It works fine. It’s a little slow (5-10 seconds) if no one has used it in a bit, but after that it’s fine. I expect most free services are like that.
Good to know. I think I’ll have axios send a dummy request on the very first pageload just to wake the backend up. It’s not needed until step 3 so the delay shouldn’t be a problem, at least on my current project 
Heroku is great, and you can deploy apps using Git. As Kevin Smith says, it’s a bit slow on first load when you are using free dynos. The app will stay ‘awake’ for one hour, during which it will load quickly, then go into a ‘sleep’ state and take 10-15 seconds to load.