Disclosed herein are embodiments for free-space handling in pages and in-memory containers allowing variable-size data entries. An example system may determine expanses of unallocated space, within a page loaded in memory and configured to allocate a first data entry of a first size within the page that may also allocate at least one subsequent data entry of a second size different from the first size; save, into memory, transient free-space information corresponding to the page, including first position information for a first number of expanses of contiguous unallocated space within the page; evict the page from memory, writing allocated data entries contained therein to persistent storage; store, into persistent storage, persistent free-space information corresponding to the page, including second position information for a second number of expanses of unallocated space within the page, the second number being less than the first number; and discard the transient free-space information.