Facts read November 6, 2026
Render 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 Render if you care most about background jobs and long-running servers.
Side by side
| Fact | Render | Vercel |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Managed hosting for long-running web services, workers, cron jobs and Docker containers. | Managed hosting for frontend frameworks with serverless functions and preview deployments. |
| Free plan | Hobby workspace: free web services (512 MB RAM, 750 instance hours/month, spin down after 15 minutes idle), 5 GB bandwidth, 500 build minutes per month. | 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 | $7/month for the smallest paid web service (512 MB RAM). | Pro: $20/month, including $20 of usage credit, then pay as you go. |
| At 1,000 users | $7/month | $20/month |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Best for | Long-running servers and websockets; Background workers and cron jobs; Docker-based apps | Next.js apps; Preview deployments per pull request; Small teams that want no servers to manage |
| Watch out | Render's docs say not to use free instances for production; they spin down after 15 minutes idle. Free Postgres expires 30 days after creation. | 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 | Render | Vercel |
|---|---|---|
| background jobs or long-running servers | +3 Always-on services, background workers and cron jobs are first-class. | −2 Functions are request-scoped; long jobs need a queue or another host. |
| Next.js or React | 0 Runs Next.js as a Node server. | +3 Built by the Next.js team; Next.js features work without adapters. |
| traffic comes in viral spikes | −1 A fixed-size server doesn't absorb a sudden spike by itself; you size up or add instances ahead of time. | +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. |
| realtime features | +2 Persistent servers hold websocket connections. | 0 No particular strength here. |
| keep costs as low as possible | 0 No particular strength here. | −1 Free only for non-commercial use; a paying product starts at $20/month. |
| global low latency | 0 No particular strength here. | +1 Global CDN with edge middleware. |
Sources: Render pricing (read November 6, 2026), Vercel pricing (read November 12, 2026). No vendor pays for placement.