Vercel vs the alternatives

Cloudflare Workers & Pages is the cheapest credible option at $5/month with no egress charge, though Vercel still wins on Next.js parity.

Providers
13
Fields compared
26
Source confidence
33%
Last verified
2026-06-15 (3mo ago)
Re-verified
every 30 days
Data confidence0% of 304 figures verified in the last 30d
57sourced of 30457stale, oldest 3mo ago

Providers

13 compared
Coolify logo
CoolifyTeams that already run servers and resent the Vercel invoice
74.2scoreDokploy logo
DokploySelf-hosters who need more than one node from day one
74.2scoreVercel logo
VercelNext.js apps using PPR, cross-region ISR or managed image optimisation
73.2scoreCloudflare Workers & Pages logo
Cloudflare Workers & PagesAnything where a traffic spike must not produce a four-figure invoice
72.5scoreHetzner + Coolify logo
Hetzner + CoolifyBenchmarking whether a managed host is worth its markup
65.9scoreNorthflank logo
NorthflankTeams that need workloads inside their own cloud account for compliance
65.7scoreNetlify logo
NetlifyContent sites with steady, forecastable traffic
64.0scoreDeno Deploy logo
Deno DeployWeb-standard TypeScript services and APIs
64.0scoreFly.io logo
Fly.ioAustralian or multi-region apps that need compute near users
62.9scoreSevalla logo
SevallaTeams already inside the Kinsta ecosystem
62.2scoreRailway logo
RailwayMulti-service apps where the database and the web app should live together
61.4scoreRender logo
RenderHeroku refugees who want fixed monthly prices
54.5scoreAWS Amplify Hosting logo
AWS Amplify HostingApps whose data already lives in AWS, especially in Sydney
51.1score
13 tools · verified 3mo ago
Coolify logoCoolifyOpen-source self-hosted PaaS: git push to your own server, with previews and cron.74.2

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
self-managed
Runtime model
container
Fn timeout (ms)
–
Cold start (ms)
0ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
No
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
Yes
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
redeploy

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
throttle
Bandwidth price (/TB)
–
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
–
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
–
Image opt billing
byo
Analytics cost (/mo)
–
Free tier
5

Portability

Self-hostable
Yes
Exit friction
1

Automation

CLI quality
2
Agent/CI deploy
Partial

Traction

GA year
2021
Funding
oss-community

Positioning

Pricing clarity
5
Dokploy logoDokployOpen-source self-hosted PaaS on Docker Swarm, with multi-node clustering built in.74.2

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
self-managed
Runtime model
container
Fn timeout (ms)
·
Cold start (ms)
0ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
No
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
Yes
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
redeploy

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
throttle
Bandwidth price (/TB)
–
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
·
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
–
Image opt billing
byo
Analytics cost (/mo)
·
Free tier
5

Portability

Self-hostable
Yes
Exit friction
1

Automation

CLI quality
2
Agent/CI deploy
Partial

Traction

GA year
2024
Funding
oss-community

Positioning

Pricing clarity
5
Vercel logoVercelThe frontend cloud that ships Next.js: best-in-class DX, metered everything.73.2

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+4
Next.js parity
full
Runtime model
edge+node
Fn timeout (ms)
5min
Cold start (ms)
250ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
Yes
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
Yes
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
instant

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
$150/TB
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
$20/mo
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
24,000min/mo
Image opt billing
metered
Analytics cost (/mo)
$10/mo
Free tier
4

Portability

Self-hostable
No
Exit friction
4

Automation

CLI quality
5
Agent/CI deploy
Yes

Traction

GA year
2015
Funding
late-stage

Positioning

Pricing clarity
2
Cloudflare Workers & Pages logoCloudflare Workers & PagesV8 isolates on 300+ PoPs, with zero egress charges and near-zero cold starts.72.5

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+4
Next.js parity
most
Runtime model
edge-only
Fn timeout (ms)
30s
Cold start (ms)
5ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
Yes
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
Yes
Monorepo support
Partial
Rollback
instant

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
$0/TB
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
$5/mo
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
3,000min/mo
Image opt billing
metered
Analytics cost (/mo)
$0/mo
Free tier
5

Portability

Self-hostable
Partial
Exit friction
4

Automation

CLI quality
4
Agent/CI deploy
Yes

Traction

GA year
2017
Funding
public

Positioning

Pricing clarity
4
Hetzner + Coolify logoHetzner + CoolifyThe DIY baseline: a €4 CX22 running Coolify, with 20 TB of traffic included.65.9

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
self-managed
Runtime model
container
Fn timeout (ms)
–
Cold start (ms)
0ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
Partial
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
No
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
redeploy

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
$1/TB
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
$5/mo
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
–
Image opt billing
byo
Analytics cost (/mo)
–
Free tier
1

Portability

Self-hostable
Yes
Exit friction
1

Automation

CLI quality
2
Agent/CI deploy
Partial

Traction

GA year
2018
Funding
bootstrapped

Positioning

Pricing clarity
5
Northflank logoNorthflankContainer platform with bring-your-own-cloud, GPUs and a sandbox-shaped API.65.7

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
self-managed
Runtime model
container
Fn timeout (ms)
–
Cold start (ms)
0ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
Partial
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
Partial
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
instant

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
$100/TB
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
$120/mo
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
–
Image opt billing
byo
Analytics cost (/mo)
·
Free tier
3

Portability

Self-hostable
Partial
Exit friction
2

Automation

CLI quality
4
Agent/CI deploy
Yes

Traction

GA year
2021
Funding
growth

Positioning

Pricing clarity
3
Deno Deploy logoDeno DeployWeb-standard JavaScript at the edge, with built-in OpenTelemetry and a global KV.64.0

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
basic
Runtime model
edge-only
Fn timeout (ms)
–
Cold start (ms)
50ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
Partial
Observability
included-full
Sydney region
Yes
Monorepo support
Partial
Rollback
instant

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
–
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
–
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
·
Image opt billing
none
Analytics cost (/mo)
$0/mo
Free tier
4

Portability

Self-hostable
No
Exit friction
2

Automation

CLI quality
4
Agent/CI deploy
Yes

Traction

GA year
2021
Funding
growth

Positioning

Pricing clarity
3
Netlify logoNetlifyThe original Jamstack host: strong build pipeline, punishing bandwidth overage.64.0

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+4
Next.js parity
most
Runtime model
edge+node
Fn timeout (ms)
10s
Cold start (ms)
300ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
Partial
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
Partial
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
instant

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
$550/TB
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
$19/mo
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
25,000min/mo
Image opt billing
included
Analytics cost (/mo)
$9/mo
Free tier
3

Portability

Self-hostable
No
Exit friction
3

Automation

CLI quality
4
Agent/CI deploy
Yes

Traction

GA year
2015
Funding
late-stage

Positioning

Pricing clarity
3
Fly.io logoFly.ioFirecracker microVMs in 35+ regions including Sydney, driven from the CLI.62.9

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
self-managed
Runtime model
container
Fn timeout (ms)
–
Cold start (ms)
400ms
Cron jobs
Partial
Preview deploys
Partial
WAF & DDoS
Partial
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
Yes
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
redeploy

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
$20/TB
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
$30/mo
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
–
Image opt billing
byo
Analytics cost (/mo)
·
Free tier
2

Portability

Self-hostable
No
Exit friction
2

Automation

CLI quality
5
Agent/CI deploy
Yes

Traction

GA year
2020
Funding
growth

Positioning

Pricing clarity
3
Sevalla logoSevallaKinsta's developer platform: apps, static sites, databases and object storage on GCP.62.2

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
self-managed
Runtime model
container
Fn timeout (ms)
·
Cold start (ms)
0ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Partial
WAF & DDoS
Yes
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
Yes
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
instant

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
–
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
·
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
–
Image opt billing
byo
Analytics cost (/mo)
·
Free tier
3

Portability

Self-hostable
No
Exit friction
2

Automation

CLI quality
2
Agent/CI deploy
Partial

Traction

GA year
2024
Funding
bootstrapped

Positioning

Pricing clarity
4
Railway logoRailwayContainer PaaS with the best developer experience in the category and usage billing.61.4

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
self-managed
Runtime model
container
Fn timeout (ms)
–
Cold start (ms)
0ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
Partial
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
No
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
instant

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
$50/TB
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
$60/mo
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
–
Image opt billing
byo
Analytics cost (/mo)
–
Free tier
2

Portability

Self-hostable
No
Exit friction
2

Automation

CLI quality
4
Agent/CI deploy
Yes

Traction

GA year
2020
Funding
growth

Positioning

Pricing clarity
3
Render logoRenderHeroku-shaped container host with blueprints, managed Postgres and calm billing.54.5

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
self-managed
Runtime model
container
Fn timeout (ms)
–
Cold start (ms)
0ms
Cron jobs
Yes
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
Partial
Observability
included-basic
Sydney region
No
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
instant

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
$300/TB
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
$280/mo
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
500min/mo
Image opt billing
byo
Analytics cost (/mo)
–
Free tier
3

Portability

Self-hostable
No
Exit friction
2

Automation

CLI quality
3
Agent/CI deploy
Yes

Traction

GA year
2019
Funding
growth

Positioning

Pricing clarity
4
AWS Amplify Hosting logoAWS Amplify HostingManaged Next.js and static hosting inside AWS, billed per GB with no spend cap.51.1

Platform

Frameworks
nextjsnuxt+3
Next.js parity
most
Runtime model
node
Fn timeout (ms)
30s
Cold start (ms)
800ms
Cron jobs
No
Preview deploys
Yes
WAF & DDoS
Partial
Observability
paid-addon
Sydney region
Yes
Monorepo support
Yes
Rollback
instant

Pricing & overage

Overage behaviour
bill
Bandwidth price (/TB)
$150/TB
Price @ 1 TB (/mo)
$155/mo
Build minutes incl. (min/mo)
0min/mo
Image opt billing
metered
Analytics cost (/mo)
–
Free tier
2

Portability

Self-hostable
No
Exit friction
3

Automation

CLI quality
2
Agent/CI deploy
Yes

Traction

GA year
2018
Funding
public

Positioning

Pricing clarity
2
yespartialnounknown
Sources shown beside each value · Learn how sourcing works
measured vendor-claimed community inferredExpand any row for the source, verification date, and caveat behind every cell.
Vercel alternatives compared (2026) pricing, compared line by line

Where each one wins

Coolify

74.2
  • Teams that already run servers and resent the Vercel invoice
  • Internal tools and staging fleets where downtime is survivable
  • Workloads that must stay in a specific country or jurisdiction

Astonishingly complete for free software, in exchange for the pager, disk alerts and nobody helping at 3am.

Dokploy

74.2
  • Self-hosters who need more than one node from day one
  • Rolling deploys without standing up Kubernetes
  • Replacing a small Railway or Render bill with a fixed VPS cost

Coolify with Docker Swarm underneath: pick it over Coolify when you expect to outgrow one server.

Vercel

73.2
  • Next.js apps using PPR, cross-region ISR or managed image optimisation
  • Teams where frontend velocity is worth more than $200 a month
  • Anything where preview URLs are part of the review process

Still the best place to run Next.js, and still the hardest bill to forecast past the first terabyte.

Cloudflare Workers & Pages

72.5
  • Anything where a traffic spike must not produce a four-figure invoice
  • Latency-sensitive APIs and edge middleware
  • Teams already using R2, D1 or Durable Objects

The correct answer when the bill is why you are here: free egress makes overage a footnote.

Hetzner + Coolify

65.9
  • Benchmarking whether a managed host is worth its markup
  • European or US workloads with high bandwidth and low ops needs
  • Side projects and internal tools where a single box is genuinely enough

The number every managed host argues against: about $5/month with 20 TB included and €1/TB overage.

Northflank

65.7
  • Teams that need workloads inside their own cloud account for compliance
  • Full-stack preview environments including databases
  • Batch jobs and cron alongside long-running services

The most capable platform nobody shortlists, let down mainly by its illegible published pricing.

Netlify

64.0
  • Content sites with steady, forecastable traffic
  • Teams that lean on build plugins and deploy previews
  • Migrating off Vercel without changing the git-push workflow

A very good build pipeline attached to the worst egress pricing in the category.

Deno Deploy

64.0
  • Web-standard TypeScript services and APIs
  • Teams that want tracing without wiring up an observability vendor
  • Fresh and Astro sites at the edge

The best out-of-the-box observability here, but the smallest platform with pricing rebuilt more than once.

Fly.io

62.9
  • Australian or multi-region apps that need compute near users
  • Teams comfortable living in the terminal
  • Workloads that benefit from auto-stopping machines between bursts

The right answer for Australian teams who want containers: real Sydney compute and cheap egress in one product.

Sevalla

62.2
  • Teams already inside the Kinsta ecosystem
  • Static sites and simple apps that want a managed edge included
  • Anyone who prefers a bootstrapped vendor to a venture-funded one

A tidy, well-priced platform from a profitable vendor, but the newest and least automatable option here.

Railway

61.4
  • Multi-service apps where the database and the web app should live together
  • Teams that want containers without learning Kubernetes
  • Replacing a Heroku setup without rewriting anything

The nicest developer experience of any container host, disqualified for AU-facing apps only by its missing Sydney region.

Render

54.5
  • Heroku refugees who want fixed monthly prices
  • Apps that need background workers and cron alongside the web service
  • Teams that value predictable invoices over the lowest possible price

The calmest billing in the category, undercut only by bandwidth overage and the missing Australian region.

AWS Amplify Hosting

51.1
  • Apps whose data already lives in AWS, especially in Sydney
  • Organisations where procurement will only sign an AWS contract
  • Static sites that need CloudFront and IAM in the same account

Only worth it when your stack already lives in AWS and needs data in ap-southeast-2.

Which Vercel alternative should I use, and what happens to my bill if my site goes viral?

  • VercelVercel logo is not overpriced at small scale.
  • Pro bundles 1 TB of transfer into the $20 seat price.
  • The cliff is the second terabyte: ~$0.15/GB is $150, more from Sydney.
  • That cliff, not the base price, sends people to this page.
  • Cloudflare Workers & PagesCloudflare Workers & Pages logo ends the bill argument: egress is free by policy.
  • A front-page spike costs requests and CPU-milliseconds, not bandwidth.
  • The price: a non-Node runtime, unique bindings, and OpenNext instead of the framework team.
  • Prefer containers? RailwayRailway logo and Render are the two grown-up options.
  • Fly.ioFly.io logo is the pick when Sydney latency matters, the only host with a real syd region.
  • RailwayRailway logo has the better DX and cheaper compute since moving to its own hardware.
  • Render has calmer billing and a useful free tier for staging.
  • NorthflankNorthflank logo is underrated: previews, cron, and bring-your-own-cloud into your own Sydney account.
  • NetlifyNetlify logo deserves a specific warning: overage is $55 per 100 GB.
  • That is roughly 3.5× VercelVercel logo and produced the canonical $104,000 DDoS invoice.
  • The bill was waived and protections improved, but the pricing shape is unchanged.
  • AWS Amplify has the same exposure with none of the polish.
  • No spend cap exists anywhere in AWS; Budgets only email while the meter runs.
  • Self-host rows are not a joke: a €4/month Hetzner box with CoolifyCoolify logo includes 20 TB.
  • Overage is €1/TB, so a spike costing $450 on NetlifyNetlify logo costs about one euro.
  • A managed host sells you the person who gets paged, not compute.
  • If nobody wants the pager, do not self-host, whatever the table says.
  • If you already run servers, CoolifyCoolify logo or DokployDokploy logo delete most of the VercelVercel logo bill in an afternoon.
  • The only real loss is the global CDN, which Cloudflare restores for free.

The bandwidth cliff, priced out

  • The interesting number is the marginal one, not the base price.
  • Cloudflare charges nothing per terabyte; Hetzner charges about €1.
  • Fly.ioFly.io logo charges $20 in North America and Europe, roughly double into Asia-Pacific.
  • RailwayRailway logo charges $50; AWS Amplify and VercelVercel logo both land near $150.
  • NetlifyNetlify logo charges around $550, because overage is sold in $55 blocks of 100 GB.
  • The ordering barely changes as you scale.
  • At 1 TB VercelVercel logo looks competitive because that terabyte is bundled.
  • At 5 TB it costs upwards of $600 while Cloudflare still costs $5.
  • So "is VercelVercel logo expensive?" has no answer without a traffic number.
  • Below a terabyte, the honest answer is no.
  • Above three or four on an image-heavy site, it becomes the largest infrastructure line item.
  • The mitigation nobody mentions: keep VercelVercel logo, put Cloudflare in front, cache aggressively.
  • That cuts most billable transfer.
  • More work than moving hosts, far less work than rewriting for a new runtime.

How to actually decide

  • Start with the framework question: it constrains everything else.
  • Depend on VercelVercel logo-only features, PPR and cross-region ISR? Your choices narrow.
  • Realistically: VercelVercel logo, or a container running next start with a single-region cache.
  • Everything else here is a compromise between those two.
  • Apply the traffic test.
  • Under 500 GB a month, pick on developer experience: the spread is under $30.
  • Over 2 TB, pick on egress price, because nothing else on the invoice matters.
  • Apply the pager test.
  • Managed hosts sell you an on-call rotation more than compute.
  • CoolifyCoolify logo and DokployDokploy logo are excellent software and do not answer the phone.
  • One backend engineer and a deadline is a decisive argument for RailwayRailway logo or Render over a VPS.
  • Finally, check the region.
  • AU and NZ teams should treat the Sydney column as a hard filter.
  • Singapore adds roughly 90 ms of round trip, visible on any multi-call page.

Migration paths that actually work

  • Moving off VercelVercel logo is easy for static and SSR-only apps.
  • It is hard for anything touching the platform's own primitives.
  • An app using only app/ routes, next/image and standard middleware moves in an afternoon.
  • Add a Dockerfile, set output: "standalone", point DNS.
  • Friction starts with VercelVercel logo KV, Blob, Edge Config and cron routes.
  • Each needs a replacement service, not a config change.
  • Two migrations are consistently underestimated: image optimisation and ISR.
  • next/image on a container optimises on your own CPU with no CDN in front.
  • Fine at low volume, expensive at high volume.
  • Most teams end up adding Cloudflare Images or a third-party image CDN.
  • ISR across multiple instances revalidates per instance unless you configure a shared cache handler.
  • So stale pages behave differently than on VercelVercel logo, usually surfacing as a bug report.
  • The reverse migration, onto VercelVercel logo, is much easier.
  • Worth knowing: starting on RailwayRailway logo or Fly costs nothing in optionality; building against VercelVercel logo's primitives does.

What is vercel alternatives compared (2026)?

Vercel alternatives compared (2026)

On toolweight, VercelVercel logo alternatives compared (2026) means the 13 tools benchmarked on this page, VercelVercel logo, NetlifyNetlify logo, Cloudflare Workers & PagesCloudflare Workers & Pages logo, RailwayRailway logo, Render, Fly.ioFly.io logo, Deno DeployDeno Deploy logo, NorthflankNorthflank logo, SevallaSevalla logo, AWS Amplify HostingAWS Amplify Hosting logo, CoolifyCoolify logo, DokployDokploy logo, Hetzner + CoolifyHetzner + Coolify logo, judged on the same 26 fields, from the same sources, on the same date. The question it exists to answer: Which VercelVercel logo alternative should I use, and what happens to my bill if my site goes viral?

How does toolweight compare these?

  • Every price is the lowest paid tier a commercial project can ship on.
  • Not the free tier, not an enterprise quote.
  • "Price at 1 TB" is the estimated monthly invoice for one small production app.
  • It assumes 1 TB of transfer and about a million requests.
  • Components: seat or base fee, one always-on instance where required, plus metered bandwidth.
  • It ignores databases, heavy compute and image transformations, which diverge too far to compare.
  • Treat it as a shape, not a quote.
  • Overage behaviour is an enum, not a score: the four outcomes are different failure modes.
  • throttle: you get slower or serve errors, and no invoice arrives.
  • hard-stop: the site goes down, and no invoice arrives.
  • bill: the site stays up and the invoice is unbounded.
  • bill-then-suspend: you get both.
  • We rank in that order because a five-figure bill is harder to undo than an hour of downtime.
  • That is an editorial position: reweight the field and bill can become the best answer.
  • Cells marked "inferred" are our reasoning from adjacent published facts.
  • Blank cells are facts we could not stand behind; we prefer a dash to a wrong number.
Full methodology and sourcing policy →
Cite this comparisonCC-BY-4.0 · verified 2026-06-15

Cloudflare Workers & Pages is the cheapest credible option at $5/month with no egress charge, though Vercel still wins on Next.js parity. — toolweight, https://toolweight.com/compare/vercel-alternatives, verified 2026-06-15. Data from toolweight (https://toolweight.com), licensed CC-BY-4.0.

Frequently asked questions

What actually happens if my Vercel site hits the Hacker News front page?

  • On the Pro plan, nothing breaks and you get billed.
  • The first terabyte of transfer is included.
  • Beyond that you pay roughly $0.15/GB, more out of Sydney.
  • Spend Management can pause the project at your chosen amount, but it is off by default.
  • Turn it on before you launch, not after.

Is Cloudflare Workers really free bandwidth, or is there a catch?

  • It really is free: Cloudflare has never metered egress and treats it as a competitive position.
  • The catch is elsewhere: you pay per request and per CPU-millisecond.
  • The runtime is V8 isolates, not Node, and Next.js runs through the community OpenNext adapter.
  • PPR is not supported and probably will not be soon.

Which of these have an Australian region?

  • VercelVercel logo (syd1), Cloudflare (Sydney PoP), Fly.ioFly.io logo (syd), AWS Amplify (ap-southeast-2) and Deno DeployDeno Deploy logo all serve from Sydney.
  • RailwayRailway logo and Render do not: nearest is Singapore, roughly 90 ms further away.
  • NorthflankNorthflank logo reaches Sydney only through bring-your-own-cloud.
  • Hetzner has no Australian region, the main argument against the DIY baseline for AU apps.

Can I run Next.js properly outside Vercel?

  • Yes, and better than the folklore suggests.
  • Running next start in a container on RailwayRailway logo, Render or Fly gives every feature including PPR.
  • What you lose is the CDN, shared ISR caching across instances, and managed image optimisation.
  • NetlifyNetlify logo and AWS Amplify get closest to VercelVercel logo's managed behaviour; Cloudflare gets close via OpenNext.

Is self-hosting with Coolify actually cheaper once you count your time?

  • Only if you already run servers.
  • A Hetzner CX22 with CoolifyCoolify logo costs about €4/month including 20 TB, versus $20 plus overage on VercelVercel logo.
  • The savings are real but small until you serve several terabytes.
  • The genuine cost: TLS renewals, disk pressure and the 3am reboot become yours.

Which platform has the best free tier for a real side project?

  • Cloudflare, by a distance: 100,000 requests a day, unmetered bandwidth, commercial use allowed.
  • VercelVercel logo's Hobby tier is more generous in features but forbids commercial use.
  • That catches people out when a side project starts taking money.
  • Render's free tier is fine for staging but sleeps instances after fifteen minutes idle.

Does anything here throttle instead of billing me?

  • Almost nothing: free tiers generally hard-stop or suspend, paid tiers almost universally bill.
  • The self-host rows are the only ones that degrade gracefully.
  • A saturated box gets slow; it does not send an invoice.
  • For a hard ceiling on a managed host, VercelVercel logo's Spend Management and RailwayRailway logo's usage limits genuinely stop spending rather than just alert.

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