I found SwiftServers and it is a professional Minecraft hosting platform that is totally free to use. It is made to avoid the usual free host problems like queues and lag.
They use a custom control panel they built from scratch and it feels focused on being lightweight and easy. You can spin up a vanilla SMP with friends or run a Paper server fast.
They support multiple server types like Paper and Spigot and Fabric plus Hytale and Luanti and ClassiCube. Security is a big deal here with DDoS protection and a backup system so you can create and restore quickly.
The free plan includes 8 GB RAM with a Ryzen 5 3600 and 10 GB NVMe SSD and a 1 Gbit uplink. They also say there is no player slot cap and no credit card needed.

