{"slug": "vercel", "name": "Vercel", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "Cloud platform for deploying and hosting frontend and Next.js web applications.", "recommenders": 8, "commenters": 31, "warners": 7, "score": 4.853, "rising": 0.04, "first": "2025-11-01", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "Liked for easy deployment without managing build systems or servers, and for a free tier that still works for Node.js and hobby apps.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 8, "neutral": 13, "compare": 3, "warn": 7}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 2, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2], "listed": true, "loved": ["Ease of use", "Free tier"], "caveat": "Pricing", "short_quote": "For a full Node.js runtime, Vercel's free tier is still a good option (if you don't need observability)", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://vercel.com", "pricing": "freemium", "aliases": ["Vercel"], "verdict": [{"text": "Liked for easy deployment without managing build systems or servers", "cites": [{"id": 805052464, "item_id": 50315779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50315779", "by": "bemeeker", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you can use Vercel or Railway for ease of use", "excerpt": "For apps at scale, you can use Vercel or Railway for ease of use. I prefer to use Cloudflare pages/workers and a DigitalOcean droplet or something. Putting it up in standard cloud infrastructure also forces you to think a little bit more about how it\u2019s built. E.g. where does the database live? Is there a separate API service, or built-in? Thinking like that will help your app perform better already at scale, instead ", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting apps at scale", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Deployed vibecoded apps in prod at scale?"}, {"id": 802485600, "item_id": 50155350, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50155350", "by": "dmayle", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm using Vercel so that I don't have to manage build systems and servers", "excerpt": "I used AI to help build it, but this isn't a one-shot app: I did research, UI flows (ascii first, then designs and mocks), code critiques, schema rewrites, performance analysis and tuning. ...and I get the idea that you can vibe-code a very polished looking version of something, and I think that's going to change software development in ways we haven't thought of yet. I think open-source becomes viable with an audien", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting and builds", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I built a task system to handle the drudgery so I could focus on tasks"}, {"id": 751747218, "item_id": 46984201, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46984201", "by": "themanmaran", "date": "2026-02-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "fell behind the capabilities and devex of products like Supabase and Vercel.", "excerpt": "> Heroku remains an actively supported, production-ready platform, with an emphasis on maintaining quality and operational excellence rather than introducing new features [1] This sentence is what really seals the death for me. I used to be a big Heroku fan. And used them as late as 2023. But tbh it very quickly fell behind the capabilities and devex of products like Supabase and Vercel. While I agree that it will pr", "context": "", "use_case": "app hosting", "switched_from": "Heroku", "story": "Heroku Is Not Dead"}]}, {"text": ", and for a free tier that still works for Node.js and hobby apps.", "cites": [{"id": 760842929, "item_id": 47552683, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47552683", "by": "supernes", "date": "2026-03-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For a full Node.js runtime, Vercel's free tier is still a good option (if you don't need observability)", "excerpt": "If your API can run on the edge, you can get a database, function calling and user auth on Supabase's free tier. For a full Node.js runtime, Vercel's free tier is still a good option (if you don't need observability), again paired with Supabase for data. If you can stretch \"free\" to \"under \u20ac100 per year\", then a cloud server from e.g. Hetzner will give you full control on a budget.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Node.js app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best place to host a Node.js App in 2026"}, {"id": 774631746, "item_id": 48414484, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48414484", "by": "notunhackable", "date": "2026-06-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I am currently going for vercel for no cost.", "excerpt": "Currently using Arch Linux with VsCode and as server, I am currently going for vercel for no cost.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 804661184, "item_id": 50291324, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291324", "by": "rohansrma", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I'm kind of afraid with the vercel's pricing even the starting $20", "excerpt": "thank you for that suggestion. I'm taking advantage of CDN cache. But still hitting the limits/. For the vercel part, my application <https://placeprep.app> (mentioning again that it's a non-profit application) is going so well even when I stopped marketing for it. I'm kind of afraid with the vercel's pricing even the starting $20 because it will be more than enough for me and mostly get wasted. I checked easel and a", "context": "runs a non-profit application", "use_case": "hosting non-profit web app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is cloudfare workers better than Vercel? (free tier)"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is cost, with users paying $20 per month for small or static sites", "cites": [{"id": 769338832, "item_id": 48083677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083677", "by": "djyde", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I needed to pay $20 per month", "excerpt": "I've transitioned between cloud services and self-hosting a few times: 1. Vercel Phase My first project used Vercel. Since my project was Next.js, the experience was decent. But as my project gained some users, I found that even for projects under 100 users, I needed to pay $20 per month. Since my service didn't require high performance, this cost felt steep. 2. Self-host Phase (Hetzner + Coolify) Later, I started se", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Next.js project", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}, {"id": 763000706, "item_id": 47687544, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47687544", "by": "l5870uoo9y", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I was paying Vercel $20 per month for serving static pages(it\u2019s 4 times more than I pay Railway for the Postgres database", "excerpt": "I migrated the landing pages for my app[1] from Nextjs to Astrojs mainly because I was paying Vercel $20 per month for serving static pages(it\u2019s 4 times more than I pay Railway for the Postgres database for the actual app and also 4 times more than I pay Cloudflare for hosting all my apps). I used AI for migrating and it took a few days only as the existing repo was used as \u201cinstructions\u201d and it included some upgrade", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting static pages", "switched_from": "", "story": "We moved Railway's front end off Next.js. Builds went from 10 minutes to under 2"}, {"id": 775390641, "item_id": 48461915, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48461915", "by": "Mystery-Machine", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "You're hosting on Vercel, one of the most expensive hosting providers.", "excerpt": "I love it! A few questions that made me think: - how do you know that \"people use it for all kinds of things\"? I just read your privacy policy and I'm concerned about my AI agent possibly leaking some API key to Hutch and then you can read it. - how is this free? You're hosting on Vercel, one of the most expensive hosting providers. What happens when this goes semi-viral? How do I know you won't just pull the plug to", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are tools you have made for yourself since the advent of AI"}]}, {"text": ", and some former fans say the platform has become a complicated mess.", "cites": [{"id": 781117937, "item_id": 48819871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48819871", "by": "agrippanux", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "everything they have done in the last few years turns into a complicated mess", "excerpt": "Uggggg I just implemented Better Auth for our new product - time to start looking for backup plans. I used to be a huge Vercel fanboy but everything they have done in the last few years turns into a complicated mess.", "context": "Former Vercel fanboy", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Better Auth is joining Vercel"}, {"id": 802212740, "item_id": 50138296, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50138296", "by": "asadm", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "warn", "quote": "now that vercel isn\u2019t my preferred vendor", "excerpt": "Cloudflare is exclusively what I use for any infra work I do (and I do a lot for various projects and startups of my own/others I advice). If something doesn\u2019t fit cloudflare primitives, I try to rethink my design before reaching for gcloud etc. They even do docker containers now which is great but durable objects and workers are game changer for me. The easy nextjs deployment is also my go-to now that vercel isn\u2019t m", "context": "", "use_case": "Next.js hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Matthew Prince on why Cloudflare offers a free version and always will (2016)"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Ease of use", "summary": "Commenters pick it to avoid managing build systems and servers.", "quotes": [{"id": 805052464, "item_id": 50315779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50315779", "by": "bemeeker", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you can use Vercel or Railway for ease of use", "excerpt": "For apps at scale, you can use Vercel or Railway for ease of use. I prefer to use Cloudflare pages/workers and a DigitalOcean droplet or something. Putting it up in standard cloud infrastructure also forces you to think a little bit more about how it\u2019s built. E.g. where does the database live? Is there a separate API service, or built-in? Thinking like that will help your app perform better already at scale, instead ", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting apps at scale", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Deployed vibecoded apps in prod at scale?"}, {"id": 802485600, "item_id": 50155350, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50155350", "by": "dmayle", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm using Vercel so that I don't have to manage build systems and servers", "excerpt": "I used AI to help build it, but this isn't a one-shot app: I did research, UI flows (ascii first, then designs and mocks), code critiques, schema rewrites, performance analysis and tuning. ...and I get the idea that you can vibe-code a very polished looking version of something, and I think that's going to change software development in ways we haven't thought of yet. I think open-source becomes viable with an audien", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting and builds", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I built a task system to handle the drudgery so I could focus on tasks"}, {"id": 751747218, "item_id": 46984201, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46984201", "by": "themanmaran", "date": "2026-02-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "fell behind the capabilities and devex of products like Supabase and Vercel.", "excerpt": "> Heroku remains an actively supported, production-ready platform, with an emphasis on maintaining quality and operational excellence rather than introducing new features [1] This sentence is what really seals the death for me. I used to be a big Heroku fan. And used them as late as 2023. But tbh it very quickly fell behind the capabilities and devex of products like Supabase and Vercel. While I agree that it will pr", "context": "", "use_case": "app hosting", "switched_from": "Heroku", "story": "Heroku Is Not Dead"}]}, {"label": "Free tier", "summary": "The free hobby tier is described as a good option for a full Node.js runtime.", "quotes": [{"id": 760842929, "item_id": 47552683, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47552683", "by": "supernes", "date": "2026-03-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For a full Node.js runtime, Vercel's free tier is still a good option (if you don't need observability)", "excerpt": "If your API can run on the edge, you can get a database, function calling and user auth on Supabase's free tier. For a full Node.js runtime, Vercel's free tier is still a good option (if you don't need observability), again paired with Supabase for data. If you can stretch \"free\" to \"under \u20ac100 per year\", then a cloud server from e.g. Hetzner will give you full control on a budget.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Node.js app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best place to host a Node.js App in 2026"}, {"id": 774631746, "item_id": 48414484, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48414484", "by": "notunhackable", "date": "2026-06-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I am currently going for vercel for no cost.", "excerpt": "Currently using Arch Linux with VsCode and as server, I am currently going for vercel for no cost.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 804661184, "item_id": 50291324, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291324", "by": "rohansrma", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I'm kind of afraid with the vercel's pricing even the starting $20", "excerpt": "thank you for that suggestion. I'm taking advantage of CDN cache. But still hitting the limits/. For the vercel part, my application <https://placeprep.app> (mentioning again that it's a non-profit application) is going so well even when I stopped marketing for it. I'm kind of afraid with the vercel's pricing even the starting $20 because it will be more than enough for me and mostly get wasted. I checked easel and a", "context": "runs a non-profit application", "use_case": "hosting non-profit web app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is cloudfare workers better than Vercel? (free tier)"}]}, {"label": "Reliable vendor", "summary": "One commenter trusts it because it is big enough to do things properly.", "quotes": [{"id": 751409169, "item_id": 46963073, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46963073", "by": "js3642", "date": "2026-02-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Vercel has the benifit of being big enough they have to do things properly.", "excerpt": "While I used to think Railway was an amazing service, I had a production workload get broken because they removed a feature without any depreciation period or warning. I now struggle to recommend it for anything more than a hobby project. Vercel has the benifit of being big enough they have to do things properly. For reference https://station.railway.com/questions/smtp-connection-failures-e3c635ac", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Vercel's CEO offers to cover expenses of 'Jmail'"}, {"id": 757486085, "item_id": 47342880, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47342880", "by": "notryanquinn", "date": "2026-03-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have loved Vercel\u2019s value prop. Many old apps of mine actually still use their pro tier.", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve used RedwoodJS (now CedarJS) and still will for some GraphQL focused apps I have around. I always thought of old Redwood as the easiest way to get a GraphQL React app setup for success off the bat with nice deployment targets. Now with RedwoodSDK I get the absolute easiest way to spin up a production-ready RSC app. Especially true if I don\u2019t want to be on Vercel (I have loved Vercel\u2019s value prop. Many old apps o", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "RedwoodSDK v1.0 released \u2013 We stopped breaking everything"}]}, {"label": "Next.js experience", "summary": "Deploying a Next.js project on it was described as a decent experience.", "quotes": [{"id": 769338832, "item_id": 48083677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083677", "by": "djyde", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I needed to pay $20 per month", "excerpt": "I've transitioned between cloud services and self-hosting a few times: 1. Vercel Phase My first project used Vercel. Since my project was Next.js, the experience was decent. But as my project gained some users, I found that even for projects under 100 users, I needed to pay $20 per month. Since my service didn't require high performance, this cost felt steep. 2. Self-host Phase (Hetzner + Coolify) Later, I started se", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Next.js project", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Pricing", "summary": "Users call it expensive, paying $20 per month even for small or static sites.", "quotes": [{"id": 769338832, "item_id": 48083677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083677", "by": "djyde", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I needed to pay $20 per month", "excerpt": "I've transitioned between cloud services and self-hosting a few times: 1. Vercel Phase My first project used Vercel. Since my project was Next.js, the experience was decent. But as my project gained some users, I found that even for projects under 100 users, I needed to pay $20 per month. Since my service didn't require high performance, this cost felt steep. 2. Self-host Phase (Hetzner + Coolify) Later, I started se", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Next.js project", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}, {"id": 763000706, "item_id": 47687544, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47687544", "by": "l5870uoo9y", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I was paying Vercel $20 per month for serving static pages(it\u2019s 4 times more than I pay Railway for the Postgres database", "excerpt": "I migrated the landing pages for my app[1] from Nextjs to Astrojs mainly because I was paying Vercel $20 per month for serving static pages(it\u2019s 4 times more than I pay Railway for the Postgres database for the actual app and also 4 times more than I pay Cloudflare for hosting all my apps). I used AI for migrating and it took a few days only as the existing repo was used as \u201cinstructions\u201d and it included some upgrade", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting static pages", "switched_from": "", "story": "We moved Railway's front end off Next.js. Builds went from 10 minutes to under 2"}, {"id": 775390641, "item_id": 48461915, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48461915", "by": "Mystery-Machine", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "You're hosting on Vercel, one of the most expensive hosting providers.", "excerpt": "I love it! A few questions that made me think: - how do you know that \"people use it for all kinds of things\"? I just read your privacy policy and I'm concerned about my AI agent possibly leaking some API key to Hutch and then you can read it. - how is this free? You're hosting on Vercel, one of the most expensive hosting providers. What happens when this goes semi-viral? How do I know you won't just pull the plug to", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are tools you have made for yourself since the advent of AI"}]}, {"label": "Growing complexity", "summary": "Some former fans say recent offerings became a complicated mess and moved away.", "quotes": [{"id": 781117937, "item_id": 48819871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48819871", "by": "agrippanux", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "everything they have done in the last few years turns into a complicated mess", "excerpt": "Uggggg I just implemented Better Auth for our new product - time to start looking for backup plans. I used to be a huge Vercel fanboy but everything they have done in the last few years turns into a complicated mess.", "context": "Former Vercel fanboy", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Better Auth is joining Vercel"}, {"id": 802212740, "item_id": 50138296, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50138296", "by": "asadm", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "warn", "quote": "now that vercel isn\u2019t my preferred vendor", "excerpt": "Cloudflare is exclusively what I use for any infra work I do (and I do a lot for various projects and startups of my own/others I advice). If something doesn\u2019t fit cloudflare primitives, I try to rethink my design before reaching for gcloud etc. They even do docker containers now which is great but durable objects and workers are game changer for me. The easy nextjs deployment is also my go-to now that vercel isn\u2019t m", "context": "", "use_case": "Next.js hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Matthew Prince on why Cloudflare offers a free version and always will (2016)"}, {"id": 765462640, "item_id": 47841415, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47841415", "by": "esalman", "date": "2026-04-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "You should've cancelled Vercel like 6 months ago", "excerpt": "You should've cancelled Vercel like 6 months ago- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45416353", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Vercel alternatives do you recommend?"}]}, {"label": "Middleware incident", "summary": "A March 2026 incident let requests skip Middleware, possibly bypassing auth logic.", "quotes": [{"id": 756567952, "item_id": 47285497, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47285497", "by": "hubraumhugo", "date": "2026-03-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "any requests served until 21:10 UTC did not execute Middleware.", "excerpt": "In a separate email, they note: > For affected deployments created during this window, any requests served until 21:10 UTC did not execute Middleware. The issue has been fully remediated and no redeployment is required. > If, for authentication, authorization, or access control, you are exclusively relying upon Middleware, this incident may have allowed requests to bypass Middleware logic that would normally run. We ", "context": "", "use_case": "deployment hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Vercel deployments were created without Middleware"}]}, {"label": "Free tier limits", "summary": "The free tier is recommended only if you don't need observability.", "quotes": [{"id": 760842929, "item_id": 47552683, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47552683", "by": "supernes", "date": "2026-03-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For a full Node.js runtime, Vercel's free tier is still a good option (if you don't need observability)", "excerpt": "If your API can run on the edge, you can get a database, function calling and user auth on Supabase's free tier. For a full Node.js runtime, Vercel's free tier is still a good option (if you don't need observability), again paired with Supabase for data. If you can stretch \"free\" to \"under \u20ac100 per year\", then a cloud server from e.g. Hetzner will give you full control on a budget.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Node.js app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best place to host a Node.js App in 2026"}]}], "who": [{"by": "hudtaylor", "context": "solo founder", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47268640", "date": "2026-03-05"}, {"by": "digi_wares", "context": "maker of MapMates", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46613043", "date": "2026-01-13"}, {"by": "Vikkyv", "context": "developer in Barsoi, Bihar, bootstrapping a D2C platform", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46065166", "date": "2025-11-26"}, {"by": "aiofh", "context": "built AI Operator from Hell", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45781659", "date": "2025-11-01"}], "tags": ["for hobby projects", "for Next.js apps", "for frontend deployment", "pairs with Supabase"], "use_cases": ["hosting", "app hosting", "hosting apps at scale", "hosting non-profit web app", "hosting and builds", "next.js hosting"], "compared": [{"slug": "cloudflare", "name": "Cloudflare", "co": 9, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "supabase", "name": "Supabase", "co": 12, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "next-js", "name": "Next.js", "co": 9, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude", "name": "Claude", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "railway", "name": "Railway", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "coolify", "name": "Coolify", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "cloudflare-workers", "name": "Cloudflare Workers", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "heroku", "name": "Heroku", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 798894706, "item_id": 49930919, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49930919", "by": "felix-h", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "On the backend we use Drizzle with Neon, deployed and monitored via Vercel.", "excerpt": "eventfirst | Senior Full-Stack Engineer | Berlin, Germany | REMOTE (CET) | Full-time | eventfirst.com We are applying AI to organize corporate events. We are looking for a senior engineer with at least ten years of full stack experience, a strong focus on product and UX, and some experience building an AI chat based product. Our tech stack is Typescript, React, Next.js and Tailwind. On the backend we use Drizzle with", "context": "hiring for eventfirst", "use_case": "deployment and monitoring", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2026)"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50315297", "title": "Ask HN: Deployed vibecoded apps in prod at scale?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50285896", "title": "Ask HN: Is cloudfare workers better than Vercel? (free tier)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50151980", "title": "Show HN: I built a task system to handle the drudgery so I could focus on tasks", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50138087", "title": "Matthew Prince on why Cloudflare offers a free version and always will (2016)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50069318", "title": "AWS Lambda Web Functions", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50048731", "title": "Show HN: Shpyrd \u2013 A new type of cloud for AI era", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 2}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1, "recommend": 2}, "2026-04": {"warn": 2, "recommend": 2}, "2026-05": {"warn": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 2, "warn": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-07": {"warn": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"compare": 1}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 2, "warn": 1, "recommend": 2, "compare": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 805052464, "item_id": 50315779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50315779", "by": "bemeeker", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you can use Vercel or Railway for ease of use", "excerpt": "For apps at scale, you can use Vercel or Railway for ease of use. I prefer to use Cloudflare pages/workers and a DigitalOcean droplet or something. Putting it up in standard cloud infrastructure also forces you to think a little bit more about how it\u2019s built. E.g. where does the database live? Is there a separate API service, or built-in? Thinking like that will help your app perform better already at scale, instead ", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting apps at scale", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Deployed vibecoded apps in prod at scale?"}, {"id": 804661184, "item_id": 50291324, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291324", "by": "rohansrma", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I'm kind of afraid with the vercel's pricing even the starting $20", "excerpt": "thank you for that suggestion. I'm taking advantage of CDN cache. But still hitting the limits/. For the vercel part, my application <https://placeprep.app> (mentioning again that it's a non-profit application) is going so well even when I stopped marketing for it. I'm kind of afraid with the vercel's pricing even the starting $20 because it will be more than enough for me and mostly get wasted. I checked easel and a", "context": "runs a non-profit application", "use_case": "hosting non-profit web app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is cloudfare workers better than Vercel? (free tier)"}, {"id": 802485600, "item_id": 50155350, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50155350", "by": "dmayle", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm using Vercel so that I don't have to manage build systems and servers", "excerpt": "I used AI to help build it, but this isn't a one-shot app: I did research, UI flows (ascii first, then designs and mocks), code critiques, schema rewrites, performance analysis and tuning. ...and I get the idea that you can vibe-code a very polished looking version of something, and I think that's going to change software development in ways we haven't thought of yet. I think open-source becomes viable with an audien", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting and builds", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I built a task system to handle the drudgery so I could focus on tasks"}, {"id": 802212740, "item_id": 50138296, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50138296", "by": "asadm", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "warn", "quote": "now that vercel isn\u2019t my preferred vendor", "excerpt": "Cloudflare is exclusively what I use for any infra work I do (and I do a lot for various projects and startups of my own/others I advice). If something doesn\u2019t fit cloudflare primitives, I try to rethink my design before reaching for gcloud etc. They even do docker containers now which is great but durable objects and workers are game changer for me. The easy nextjs deployment is also my go-to now that vercel isn\u2019t m", "context": "", "use_case": "Next.js hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Matthew Prince on why Cloudflare offers a free version and always will (2016)"}, {"id": 801638402, "item_id": 50102400, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50102400", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "vercel/render used to help in most cases thus they are so popular", "excerpt": "One of the first blog posts that I have written is about this topic (pardon my bad writing): \"Hosting a hobby project for free without credit card is tough (rant) & here's how I did it (Hugging face)\"[0] I remember trying to evaluate all the options and trying to find a good enough option and there were very few options aside from Vercel and Render or rewriting your application to fit cloudflare workers. HF spaces is", "context": "", "use_case": "free hobby hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 800785456, "item_id": 50049091, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50049091", "by": "VitorCordeiro", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I was using vercel and supabase on my apps", "excerpt": "I was using vercel and supabase on my apps, will give you a try", "context": "", "use_case": "app hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Shpyrd \u2013 A new type of cloud for AI era"}, {"id": 793430406, "item_id": 49589400, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589400", "by": "gourmetspam", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Stack is just Next.js / React + PostgreSQL hosted on Vercel + Supabase with GH Actions.", "excerpt": "I built Parsefin because I use tools like Dataroma and WhaleWisdom to follow what well-known investors are doing, but I was frustrated by the limited number of pre-selected investors available and terrible websites. Going to the SEC's website directly is also inefficient since you have to search for funds one-by-one, and you don't see the time series data. What Parsefin does: Parsefin parses SEC 13F/G/D portfolio dis", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Parsefin \u2013 A modern alternative to WhaleWisdom for 13F tracking"}, {"id": 787744881, "item_id": 49234055, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49234055", "by": "julia-kafarska", "date": "2026-08-09", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Light Cloud is an alternative to Vercel + Render + DB's", "excerpt": "I'm working on PaaS called Light Cloud https://light-cloud.com Light Cloud is an alternative to Vercel + Render + DB's with projects management.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)"}, {"id": 783068001, "item_id": 48941750, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48941750", "by": "Cyrus2050", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Vercel for frontend deployment", "excerpt": "I spent 2 decades in corporate America building software for different clients, and in the last 8 years was working as a principal engineer at a unicorn company. But last year, I decided to do something different with my life. It all started when I saw my boss was trying to build a personal website so he could sell his books directly, vs through Amazon, that cost %30+ more. When he asked me to help him, he had alread", "context": "", "use_case": "frontend deployment", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI that builds and runs your business, 24/7"}, {"id": 781117937, "item_id": 48819871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48819871", "by": "agrippanux", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "everything they have done in the last few years turns into a complicated mess", "excerpt": "Uggggg I just implemented Better Auth for our new product - time to start looking for backup plans. I used to be a huge Vercel fanboy but everything they have done in the last few years turns into a complicated mess.", "context": "Former Vercel fanboy", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Better Auth is joining Vercel"}, {"id": 776828018, "item_id": 48551751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48551751", "by": "sumonoahid", "date": "2026-06-16", "stance": "compare", "quote": "There are already Vercel, Railways, Coolify, Dokploy and 100 more. Glad you asked. Those are great.", "excerpt": "Why another paas ? There are already Vercel, Railways, Coolify, Dokploy and 100 more. Glad you asked. Those are great. But Some feels too many features, outdated and other just suck your bank balance when your project get more and more users. I tried to balance those. No surprise bills, No Vendor lock. You own your VPS, data and everything. You are responsible when things goes wrong. Who is it for? - Well pretty much", "context": "indie hacker who built own PaaS", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why did I create my own PaaS as indie hacker and made it open-source?"}, {"id": 775837684, "item_id": 48489855, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48489855", "by": "jonesai", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Stack is Supabase, Vercel and Cloudflare.", "excerpt": "Over the last week I built something for the World Cup. I'm a big football fan & wanted more experience shipping things. I should say upfront that I leaned heavily on Cursor and Claude for the code. Also I'm not planning to run ads on it, this is a learning project. The idea: every visitor picks one team to win the 2026 World Cup, as well as being able to make individual match predictions. Each country is coloured on", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: A live map of how every country thinks the 2026 World Cup will go"}, {"id": 775390641, "item_id": 48461915, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48461915", "by": "Mystery-Machine", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "You're hosting on Vercel, one of the most expensive hosting providers.", "excerpt": "I love it! A few questions that made me think: - how do you know that \"people use it for all kinds of things\"? I just read your privacy policy and I'm concerned about my AI agent possibly leaking some API key to Hutch and then you can read it. - how is this free? You're hosting on Vercel, one of the most expensive hosting providers. What happens when this goes semi-viral? How do I know you won't just pull the plug to", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are tools you have made for yourself since the advent of AI"}, {"id": 774631746, "item_id": 48414484, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48414484", "by": "notunhackable", "date": "2026-06-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I am currently going for vercel for no cost.", "excerpt": "Currently using Arch Linux with VsCode and as server, I am currently going for vercel for no cost.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 769338832, "item_id": 48083677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083677", "by": "djyde", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I needed to pay $20 per month", "excerpt": "I've transitioned between cloud services and self-hosting a few times: 1. Vercel Phase My first project used Vercel. Since my project was Next.js, the experience was decent. But as my project gained some users, I found that even for projects under 100 users, I needed to pay $20 per month. Since my service didn't require high performance, this cost felt steep. 2. Self-host Phase (Hetzner + Coolify) Later, I started se", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Next.js project", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}, {"id": 766672244, "item_id": 47917015, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47917015", "by": "tekacs", "date": "2026-04-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Linear, Vercel, Figma, Notion, hell even Airtable... landed 'big'", "excerpt": "I would be curious what you think of the idea of Sail and Muddy being... small. Technically complex, but small in the mind of the user. Not lacking in features (you talked about that), but 'feeling small/bounded, and therefore with small divergence' to the user. Does that... fit at all with your mental model of them? I ask because I feel like Linear, Vercel, Figma, Notion, hell even Airtable... landed 'big' (felt lik", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Lessons from Building Multiplayer Browsers"}, {"id": 765462640, "item_id": 47841415, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47841415", "by": "esalman", "date": "2026-04-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "You should've cancelled Vercel like 6 months ago", "excerpt": "You should've cancelled Vercel like 6 months ago- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45416353", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Vercel alternatives do you recommend?"}, {"id": 764555315, "item_id": 47784707, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47784707", "by": "ryanmcgarvey", "date": "2026-04-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also have GitHub and Vercel wired up", "excerpt": "Yes. I had a spare M1 Mini so I decided to set it up. YOLOed the entire thing and connected all the integrations, though I only ever use Opus/Sonnet. I have a dedicated Discord server I use to communicate with it. It really is eye-opening how powerful it is once you connect your life to it. The biggest improvement is actually the trivial stuff \u2014 emailing contractors, accountants, etc. I no longer need to open another", "context": "", "use_case": "deploying apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Is anyone actually using OpenClaw?"}, {"id": 763000706, "item_id": 47687544, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47687544", "by": "l5870uoo9y", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I was paying Vercel $20 per month for serving static pages(it\u2019s 4 times more than I pay Railway for the Postgres database", "excerpt": "I migrated the landing pages for my app[1] from Nextjs to Astrojs mainly because I was paying Vercel $20 per month for serving static pages(it\u2019s 4 times more than I pay Railway for the Postgres database for the actual app and also 4 times more than I pay Cloudflare for hosting all my apps). I used AI for migrating and it took a few days only as the existing repo was used as \u201cinstructions\u201d and it included some upgrade", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting static pages", "switched_from": "", "story": "We moved Railway's front end off Next.js. Builds went from 10 minutes to under 2"}, {"id": 760842929, "item_id": 47552683, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47552683", "by": "supernes", "date": "2026-03-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For a full Node.js runtime, Vercel's free tier is still a good option (if you don't need observability)", "excerpt": "If your API can run on the edge, you can get a database, function calling and user auth on Supabase's free tier. For a full Node.js runtime, Vercel's free tier is still a good option (if you don't need observability), again paired with Supabase for data. If you can stretch \"free\" to \"under \u20ac100 per year\", then a cloud server from e.g. Hetzner will give you full control on a budget.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Node.js app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best place to host a Node.js App in 2026"}, {"id": 757486085, "item_id": 47342880, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47342880", "by": "notryanquinn", "date": "2026-03-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have loved Vercel\u2019s value prop. Many old apps of mine actually still use their pro tier.", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve used RedwoodJS (now CedarJS) and still will for some GraphQL focused apps I have around. I always thought of old Redwood as the easiest way to get a GraphQL React app setup for success off the bat with nice deployment targets. Now with RedwoodSDK I get the absolute easiest way to spin up a production-ready RSC app. Especially true if I don\u2019t want to be on Vercel (I have loved Vercel\u2019s value prop. Many old apps o", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "RedwoodSDK v1.0 released \u2013 We stopped breaking everything"}, {"id": 756567952, "item_id": 47285497, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47285497", "by": "hubraumhugo", "date": "2026-03-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "any requests served until 21:10 UTC did not execute Middleware.", "excerpt": "In a separate email, they note: > For affected deployments created during this window, any requests served until 21:10 UTC did not execute Middleware. The issue has been fully remediated and no redeployment is required. > If, for authentication, authorization, or access control, you are exclusively relying upon Middleware, this incident may have allowed requests to bypass Middleware logic that would normally run. We ", "context": "", "use_case": "deployment hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Vercel deployments were created without Middleware"}, {"id": 756298246, "item_id": 47268640, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47268640", "by": "hudtaylor", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Tech: Next.js 15 / TypeScript / Supabase (Postgres) / Vercel / Resend", "excerpt": "AI writes code, generates art, and passes the bar exam. It still can't tell you when to take out the trash. I moved to a new neighborhood in San Diego and asked ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini my trash pickup day. They all hallucinated. The city's official lookup is a Salesforce app behind reCAPTCHA that barely works on mobile. So I built trashalert.io \u2014 and mapped 954K addresses across San Diego and Austin. What it does", "context": "solo founder", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I mapped 954K addresses because AI hallucinated my trash day"}, {"id": 756055317, "item_id": 47253457, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47253457", "by": "hudtaylor", "date": "2026-03-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Vercel (102kB first load)", "excerpt": "I moved to a new neighborhood in San Diego and couldn't figure out my trash pickup day. I asked ChatGPT. It confidently told me Tuesday. It was wrong. Asked Claude. Also wrong. Googled it \u2014 the city's lookup tool is a Salesforce app behind reCAPTCHA that barely works on mobile. So I built trashalert.io \u2014 a free, community-powered trash schedule lookup covering San Diego and Austin (954K+ addresses across 79+ neighbor", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: TrashAlert \u2013 I asked AI when my trash gets picked up. It hallucinated"}, {"id": 755960949, "item_id": 47247559, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47247559", "by": "hudtaylor", "date": "2026-03-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Vercel (102kB first load)", "excerpt": "I moved to a new neighborhood in San Diego and couldn't figure out my trash pickup day. I asked ChatGPT. It confidently told me Tuesday. It was wrong. Asked Claude. Also wrong. Googled it \u2014 the city's lookup tool is a Salesforce app behind reCAPTCHA that barely works on mobile. So I built trashalert.io \u2014 a free, community-powered trash schedule lookup covering San Diego and Austin (954K+ addresses across 79+ neighbor", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "TrashAlert \u2013 I asked AI what day my trash gets picked up and it hallucinated"}, {"id": 751747218, "item_id": 46984201, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46984201", "by": "themanmaran", "date": "2026-02-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "fell behind the capabilities and devex of products like Supabase and Vercel.", "excerpt": "> Heroku remains an actively supported, production-ready platform, with an emphasis on maintaining quality and operational excellence rather than introducing new features [1] This sentence is what really seals the death for me. I used to be a big Heroku fan. And used them as late as 2023. But tbh it very quickly fell behind the capabilities and devex of products like Supabase and Vercel. While I agree that it will pr", "context": "", "use_case": "app hosting", "switched_from": "Heroku", "story": "Heroku Is Not Dead"}, {"id": 751409169, "item_id": 46963073, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46963073", "by": "js3642", "date": "2026-02-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Vercel has the benifit of being big enough they have to do things properly.", "excerpt": "While I used to think Railway was an amazing service, I had a production workload get broken because they removed a feature without any depreciation period or warning. I now struggle to recommend it for anything more than a hobby project. Vercel has the benifit of being big enough they have to do things properly. For reference https://station.railway.com/questions/smtp-connection-failures-e3c635ac", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Vercel's CEO offers to cover expenses of 'Jmail'"}, {"id": 748492608, "item_id": 46780788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46780788", "by": "trm217", "date": "2026-01-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Vercel, Cloudflare for DNS", "excerpt": "Nice, but for me it is reporting false information. I use Vercel, Cloudflare for DNS yet it shows 92%. The only thing it correctly reported was the LinkedIn link. (There is also a GitHub and Bluesky link, which are US companies / services as well).", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: We Built the 1. EU-Sovereignty Audit for Websites"}, {"id": 745808692, "item_id": 46613043, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46613043", "by": "digi_wares", "date": "2026-01-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Deployed on Vercel.", "excerpt": "Hi HN, maker here. I built MapMates because I moved to Bangkok and realized how hard it is to find your people when you're new somewhere. LinkedIn felt too formal, dating apps weren't right, and Facebook groups are just noise. The idea is simple: drop a pin where you are, say what you do (founder, developer, designer, etc.), and see who else is nearby. If someone looks interesting, send a connection request with a me", "context": "maker of MapMates", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: MapMates \u2013 A map for expats to find people in new cities"}, {"id": 742751648, "item_id": 46421978, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46421978", "by": "bewal416", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I built this with Vercel, Convex, Vite, and Blocknote.", "excerpt": "I used to write 5 things to be happy about on a whiteboard outside my dorm room every day. I wanted to get back into it! So I built a site purely for that purpose. The coolest part is the \"Bonus\". Anyone online can contribute to the Bonus Thing. What's there at midnight will be saved permanently (unless I think it's inappropriate). I built this with Vercel, Convex, Vite, and Blocknote. You can learn more about the me", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting a web app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Things to Be Happy About"}, {"id": 740183345, "item_id": 46261459, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46261459", "by": "shekhargulati", "date": "2025-12-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "they are deployed on Vercel", "excerpt": "I also started building similar tools in early 2025 and have built around 80 of them so far: https://tools.o14.ai/. Recently, I built a data viewer app (https://tools.o14.ai/excel-qa-review.html) where I can upload an Excel or CSV file containing chat queries and answers for quick manual review. Reviewing data in Excel is painful, especially when answers are in HTML or Markdown, because you don\u2019t get proper rendering", "context": "", "use_case": "deploying tools", "switched_from": "", "story": "Useful patterns for building HTML tools"}, {"id": 737042657, "item_id": 46065166, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46065166", "by": "Vikkyv", "date": "2025-11-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Deployed on Vercel.", "excerpt": "Hi HN, I am a developer living in Barsoi, Bihar (India). The Context: My region produces ~90% of the world's supply of Makhana (Fox Nuts). I see farmers harvesting these seeds from muddy ponds daily, yet they sell them for pennies to aggregators. By the time the product reaches cities, it is 5x the price and often stale. The Project: I am bootstrapping a direct-to-consumer platform to cut out the middlemen. The Stack", "context": "developer in Barsoi, Bihar, bootstrapping a D2C platform", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I built a D2C supply chain for my village's Makhana farmers using Bolt"}, {"id": 732506546, "item_id": 45781659, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45781659", "by": "aiofh", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Deployed on Vercel", "excerpt": "Hey HN! Launching this Halloween weekend with AI Operator From Hell. I built an AI system that generates episodic sysadmin stories in the style of BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell), with a persistent character called \"The Operator\" who maintains voice consistency across episodes. Perfect timing - our featured episode is about a Halloween party in the datacenter where Server Rack #7 achieved sentience at 23:47. The Op", "context": "built AI Operator from Hell", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: AI Operator from Hell \u2013 Autonomous AI Sysadmin Writing Tech Stories"}]}