The release plan for the different components of the free edition can be found on this page: mendix dx release scheme
The free edition is an improvement of the sandbox environment. As of august 3rd you can use the Rest module, deep link module and anonymous users on sandboxes. Later we will also enable backups, monitoring, and live debugging on sandboxes, thus improving sandboxes for use for production applications. So if you want to deploy to a free edition, you need to deploy to a sandbox, same way as before.
Hi, where can we find the sandbox backups? Should be general available? https://world.mendix.com/display/ReleaseNotes/Mendix+DX+Release+Scheme