Hosting & Deploy
Comparing hosting and deploy platforms for web apps. Free tiers, build minutes, bandwidth, framework support, and where each one earns its keep.
← Back to Reference HubBest for: Next.js App Router projects with Server Actions, ISR, and PPR.
- Free Hobby: 100 GB bandwidth, 1M function invocations, 4 hrs Active CPU, 1M edge requests
- Every Next.js feature works without configuration — App Router, Server Actions, ISR, PPR, Cache Components
- Native Astro, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Remix, Hono, Express, FastAPI support — zero-config detection
- Unlimited preview deployments per PR with shareable URLs
- Default function timeout 300s on all plans; Bun and Rust runtimes supported
Limitations: Hobby tier is non-commercial only — client work and revenue-generating projects violate Fair Use. Pro is $20/seat/month.
Best for: Static sites with built-in contact forms, or client work needing commercial use on a free tier.
- Free Starter: 300 credits/month metered across bandwidth (20 credits/GB), builds, and functions; unlimited deploy previews
- Netlify Forms still available (now metered via credits rather than a fixed monthly free count)
- Auth via Netlify Extensions / partner integrations (the legacy standalone Identity service is being phased out for new projects)
- Excellent Astro and Hugo support; Next.js works with caveats around ISR and streaming
- Atomic deploys with instant rollback to any prior build
Limitations: Credit Pro plan is $20/month flat (3,000 credits, unlimited seats — April 2026 pricing update removed per-member fees). Overage costs are still metered in credits. Next.js advanced features historically lag Vercel's implementation.
Best for: Marketing sites, docs, and Astro/static content that needs maximum free bandwidth.
- Free: unlimited bandwidth, unlimited static requests, 500 builds/month, 100 custom domains
- Workers Paid: $5/month covers 10M Workers requests and 30M CPU-ms
- Astro is now first-class — Cloudflare acquired The Astro Technology Company in January 2026
- Next.js works via OpenNext adapter; SSR, ISR, and Middleware supported
- Free Web Analytics with no cookie banner needed (privacy-first by default)
Limitations: Workers run in V8 isolates, not Node.js — many npm packages need workarounds. Next.js compatibility still trails Vercel.
Best for: Full-stack monorepo with app + database side-by-side, Python/Rails backends.
- Hobby: $5/month subscription with $5 of usage credit included
- One-click Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis provisioning alongside your app
- Excellent for monorepos, background workers, cron jobs, and long-running processes
- Per-minute billing — pay only for what your services actually use
Limitations: No real free tier — trial is $5 one-time credit (expires 30 days). Not optimized for static sites. No edge network.
Best for: Heroku replacement with predictable per-service pricing.
- Free static sites with 100 GB bandwidth & 500 build minutes/month
- Web services from $7/month (Starter, 512 MB RAM)
- Native support for Node, Python, Ruby, Go, Rust, Elixir, plus any custom Dockerfile
- Pull request previews and auto-deploy from GitHub/GitLab
Limitations: Free web-service tier exists but spins down after 15 min of inactivity (30–60s cold start). April 23, 2026 workspace pricing update removed seat fees and revised bandwidth/custom-domain billing. Hobby plan limits you to 1 project. No edge network — single-region deployments by default.
Best for: Multi-region apps where latency under 50ms matters globally.
- Per-second machine billing — pay only while VMs are running
- Global Anycast routing in 35 regions; deploy multi-region with one command
- First-class Postgres clusters with HA replication across regions
- Auto-stop and auto-start machines on idle (scale-to-zero)
Limitations: No general free tier for new orgs. Steeper learning curve — you write a Dockerfile and a fly.toml. Outbound bandwidth in non-NA/EU regions gets pricey.
| Capability | Vercel | Netlify | Cloudflare | Railway | Render | Fly.io |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier exists | Yes | Yes | Yes (generous) | Trial only | Static sites | Trial only |
| Free bandwidth | 100 GB/mo | 100 GB/mo | Unlimited | N/A | 100 GB/mo | N/A |
| Commercial use on free | Prohibited | Allowed | Allowed | N/A | Allowed | N/A |
| First paid tier | $20/seat/mo | $20/mo flat (unlimited seats) | $5/mo (Workers) | $5/mo + usage | $7/mo per service | Pay-as-you-go |
| Serverless functions | Fluid Compute (Node.js) | Netlify Functions | Workers (V8 isolates) | Containers only | Containers only | Containers only |
| Function timeout (default) | 300s | Metered via credits | 30s (CPU time) | No timeout | No timeout | No timeout |
| Next.js support | Native (every feature) | Runtime v5 (most features) | OpenNext (caveats) | Container deploy | Container deploy | Container deploy |
| Python (Django, FastAPI) | Fluid Compute | Limited | Workers don't support | Native | Native | Native |
| Preview deployments per PR | Unlimited, automatic | Unlimited, automatic | Unlimited, automatic | PR environments | PR previews | Manual |
Our Recommendation
For most of our projects, Vercel is the default — we ship Next.js, the framework parity is unmatched, and Fluid Compute removes the old serverless tradeoffs. The non-commercial restriction on Hobby is the catch: any paid client work goes on Pro from day one. For pure static or edge-heavy work, Cloudflare Pages is the value play — unlimited bandwidth and first-class Astro. When the stack is Python or Rails or there's a database in the same repo, we reach for Railway.