Facts read November 6, 2026
Netlify vs Vercel
Vercel is Cuely's default hosting pick when your description doesn't favor either one: first-class Next.js support with a preview URL for every branch. Pick Netlify if you care most about the lowest cost.
Side by side
| Fact | Netlify | Vercel |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Managed hosting for static sites and frontend frameworks with serverless functions. | Managed hosting for frontend frameworks with serverless functions and preview deployments. |
| Free plan | Free: 300 credits per month (a production deploy is 15 credits, bandwidth 20 credits per GB), 1 concurrent build, 1 member; the site pauses when credits run out. | Hobby, $0/month: 1M function invocations, 4 hours Active CPU, 1M CDN requests, 100 GB Fast Data Transfer and 10 GB Fast Origin Transfer per month, 1 developer seat. |
| Paid from | Personal: $9/month (1,000 credits). Pro: from $20/month (3,000 credits, unlimited members). | Pro: $20/month, including $20 of usage credit, then pay as you go. |
| At 1,000 users | $9/month | $20/month |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Best for | Static and Jamstack sites; Astro, SvelteKit and other non-Next frameworks; Teams that want no per-seat fees | Next.js apps; Preview deployments per pull request; Small teams that want no servers to manage |
| Watch out | When monthly credits run out, the site pauses until the next billing cycle on the free plan. | Hobby (free) is for personal, non-commercial use; a product that charges money needs Pro. On Hobby, going over the included usage means waiting until 30 days have passed to use that feature again; extra usage can't be bought on Hobby. |
Where they differ
The published scores, from −3 to +3, that decide which one Cuely picks for each need.
| Need | Netlify | Vercel |
|---|---|---|
| Next.js or React | 0 Supports Next.js through its runtime adapter. | +3 Built by the Next.js team; Next.js features work without adapters. |
| keep costs as low as possible | +1 Paid plans start at $9/month. | −1 Free only for non-commercial use; a paying product starts at $20/month. |
| background jobs or long-running servers | 0 No particular strength here. | −2 Functions are request-scoped; long jobs need a queue or another host. |
| traffic comes in viral spikes | 0 No particular strength here. | +2 On Pro, CDN requests and transfer are flat-rate, and a cached response doesn't run your function, so a viral day of page views and polls costs little. Hobby stops for 30 days once you pass 1M CDN requests a month. |
| global low latency | 0 No particular strength here. | +1 Global CDN with edge middleware. |
Sources: Netlify pricing (read November 6, 2026), Vercel pricing (read November 12, 2026). No vendor pays for placement.