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Frontend and serverless platform

Vercel

Git-driven hosting for frontend frameworks and serverless functions, built by the Next.js team, with preview deployments and usage-based billing on top of a $20 Pro seat.

Visit vercel.com ↗ Alternatives Free tier EU region
Vercel homepage
§1

Overview

Vercel turns a Git repository into a deployed site: every push builds, every branch and pull request gets its own preview URL, and the main branch goes to production. Static assets are served from its global delivery network, and server code runs as functions on Fluid compute, which bills active CPU time and provisioned memory rather than wall-clock duration.

The Hobby plan is free but, per Vercel's fair use guidelines, restricted to personal, non-commercial use. It includes 100 GB of data transfer, 1M edge requests and 1M function invocations a month; when you run past a limit the feature is paused rather than billed. Runtime logs are kept for one hour.

Pro costs $20 a month and includes 1 TB of transfer and 10M edge requests, with everything above that metered per resource: bandwidth, invocations, CPU-hours, image transformations, ISR reads and writes, Blob storage and more. Spend management lets you set caps. Enterprise adds contractual SLAs, audit logs, directory sync and HIPAA support.

Before paying, estimate bandwidth and function usage: the per-resource meters make bills easy to underestimate for image-heavy or high-traffic apps. Functions run in a single region (iad1) by default, so place them near your database.

§2

Pricing and plans

Free tier · no card

Hobby: personal non-commercial use only; 100 GB fast data transfer, 1M edge requests, 1M function invocations, 4 active CPU-hours and 360 GB-hrs memory per month, 200 projects. Exceeding a limit pauses the feature until 30 days pass.

At the limit Pauses The feature that passes a Hobby limit is paused, usually until 30 days pass; Hobby is never billed.

Non-commercial only
Plan Price What you get
Hobby $0/mo Personal, non-commercial projects; 100 GB transfer, 1M invocations
Pro $20/mo 1 TB transfer and 10M edge requests included, then usage-based; team features, email support
Enterprise Custom SLAs, audit logs, directory sync, HIPAA support, custom limits

Pro usage beyond the included allowance is billed on demand, e.g. $0.15/GB fast data transfer after 1 TB, $0.60 per 1M invocations, from $0.128 per active CPU-hour. Several rates are regional. Prices exclude VAT/GST.

Source: vercel.com/pricing · prices as published, excluding tax.

§3

What it does

Preview deployments
Every branch and pull request gets its own URL, with commenting and deployment protection.
Fluid compute functions
Functions bill active CPU time and provisioned memory; one instance can serve many concurrent invocations.
Framework support
First-class Next.js support plus zero-config builds for most frontend frameworks; official runtimes for Node.js, Bun, Python, Go, Ruby, Rust and Wasm.
Firewall and bot protection
Automatic DDoS mitigation on all plans; custom WAF rules (3 on Hobby, 40 on Pro) and BotID.
Blob and image optimization
Object storage and on-the-fly image transformation, each with a free allowance and per-unit pricing.
Sandbox and Workflows
Isolated VMs for running untrusted or agent code, and durable workflow orchestration, both metered.
§4

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Preview URLs for every pull request with no setup.
  • The most complete support for Next.js features such as ISR and middleware.
  • Free DDoS mitigation and a WAF on every plan.
  • Clear published unit prices for every metered resource.

Limitations

  • The Hobby plan may not be used for commercial projects.
  • Hobby runtime logs are kept for only one hour; Pro keeps one day.
  • Functions run in one region by default; multi-region functions need Pro or Enterprise.
  • No long-running servers or first-party SQL database; stateful backends live elsewhere.
  • Many overage rates are regional, which makes bills harder to predict.
§5

Who it suits

Good for

  • Next.js and other frontend-framework apps
  • Marketing sites and docs with preview workflows
  • Teams that want zero-ops deploys from Git

Look elsewhere if

  • Commercial projects that need a free tier
  • Long-running workers, WebSocket servers or background queues
  • Bandwidth-heavy media sites on a tight budget
§6

Alternatives to Vercel

Tool From Free option Stages
Netlify Frontend and serverless platform
$9/mo Free tier
Render Managed PaaS
$7/mo Free tier
Cloudflare Workers (incl. Pages) Edge serverless platform
$5/mo Free tier
Northflank Kubernetes-based PaaS
$2.70/mo Free tier
Google Cloud Run Serverless containers
Usage-based Free tier
Deno Deploy Serverless JavaScript platform
$20/mo Free tier

All app hosting and PaaS →

§7

Questions

Can I use Vercel's free plan for a commercial site?

No. Vercel's fair use guidelines restrict the Hobby plan to personal, non-commercial use; commercial projects need Pro at $20/mo.

What happens when I exceed the Vercel Hobby limits?

The affected feature is paused, usually until 30 days have passed. Hobby is never billed.

How much bandwidth does Vercel Pro include?

1 TB of fast data transfer per month, then from $0.15 per GB depending on region.

Which languages can Vercel run on the server?

Official runtimes are Node.js, Bun, Python, Go, Ruby, Rust, Wasm and the Edge runtime; community runtimes add PHP, Deno and Bash.

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