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Vercel

Vercel builds and hosts frontend and full-stack web apps, with a preview deployment on every push and serverless functions next to the static assets.

At a glance​

What it isA Git-connected host for web frameworks. Next.js is the one it fits most closely.
Use it forStatic sites, SSR, and short request handlers. Preview URLs per branch or pull request.
Don't use it forA long-running worker, a database server, or anything that must stay up with no request cap.
Free tier (checked 2026-11-01)Hobby is free. The Hobby plan (page updated 2026-09-14) includes 100 GB Fast Data Transfer, 10 GB Fast Origin Transfer, 1,000,000 CDN requests, 4 CPU-hours Active CPU, 360 GB-hours provisioned memory, 1,000,000 function invocations, 100 deployments/day, 200 projects, 50 domains per project, a 300 second hard cap on function duration, 1 hour of runtime logs, and 50,000 Web Analytics events/month.
Pricing model (checked 2026-11-01)Pro (page updated 2026-09-15) is $20/month. That fee includes one deploying seat and a $20 monthly usage credit. Extra developer seats are $20/user/month. Viewer seats are free. Function duration defaults to 300 seconds, can be raised to 800 seconds, and an extended maximum of 1800 seconds is in beta. Build machines start at 4 vCPUs and can go up to 30. Fluid compute CPU rates differ by region; the usage page (updated 2026-06-16) shows Active CPU at $0.128/hour for the iad and pdx examples.
CLI and latest version (checked 2026-11-01)vercel 65.9.0 on the npm registry (vercel package).
Official docsvercel.com/docs and vercel.com/docs/pricing

Core concepts​

  • Project: one site or app, tied to a repository and a root directory.
  • Deployment: an immutable build. Every push creates one.
  • Preview vs production: preview deployments get their own URL. Production is the deployment currently assigned to the production domains.
  • Environments: Production, Preview, and Development. Environment variables can differ across them.
  • Functions: request handlers that run on Fluid compute. Duration and CPU are metered.
  • Edge middleware: code that runs before the cache, for rewrites, redirects, and gating. Python routing middleware is a recent addition (see releases below).
  • Rollback: promoting an older deployment back to production. It does not rebuild.

Deploy​

  1. Import the Git repository and set the framework preset and the root directory (the app folder in a monorepo).
  2. Add environment variables under Settings, Environment Variables, and choose which environments receive each one. Mark secrets as sensitive.
  3. Push to the production branch. The dashboard builds and assigns the deployment to the production domains.
  4. Add a domain under Settings, Domains. Vercel asks you for the DNS records and serves the certificate.
  5. Roll back from Deployments: open an older successful deployment and promote it to production.

Common patterns​

  • Monorepo: set the root directory to the app package. Install and build commands run in that directory.
  • Preview per pull request: the Git integration builds every PR. Point the API at a staging backend with a Preview environment variable, not the production one.
  • Cron: Vercel Cron hits a function on a schedule. The schedule lives in vercel.json under crons (cron jobs). Confirm the Hobby allowance on that page (verify the current free-tier cron count).
  • External Postgres: put the connection string in an environment variable. Prefer a pooler. Serverless functions open many short connections; see Supabase for the pooler versus direct choice.

Gotchas​

  • Duration (checked 2026-11-01): Hobby functions stop at 300 seconds. That cap is hard. Pro can go higher, up to the numbers in the pricing row above.
  • Usage credit (checked 2026-11-01): Pro includes $20 of usage. Past that, the resources in the Hobby list are metered. Read the invoice, not the seat fee alone.
  • Cold starts: a function that has not run recently pays a startup delay. There is no always-on process on Hobby.
  • No first-party Postgres on the Hobby plan page (checked 2026-11-01). Blob storage is listed. A database is an integration or an external service (verify the current storage catalog).
  • Region list: the pricing table is per region. The full set of region names was not copied here (verify).
  • Node.js 20 is disabled for new deployments as of the 2026-10-01 changelog entry. New projects default to Node.js 26 (2026-10-29).

What's new in recent releases​

From the changelog:

  • 2026-10-30: Data Cache is moving into Runtime Cache. Hobby includes 1,000,000 reads and 200,000 writes, then rates from $0.40 per million reads and $4 per million writes. Hobby teams migrate on 2026-11-29.
  • 2026-10-29: Node.js 26 LTS is generally available and the default for new projects.
  • 2026-10-28: Vercel CI is in beta.
  • 2026-10-21: routing middleware is available for Python, via vercel-proxy and a proxy key in vercel.json.
  • 2026-10-20: WebSockets in Functions are generally available.
  • 2026-10-01: Node.js 20 is disabled for new deployments.

Connects to​

  • Next.js: the framework this host is built around.
  • Netlify and Cloudflare: the other frontend hosts.
  • Supabase: a Postgres and auth backend the functions can call.
  • CI/CD: when you outgrow the built-in Git deploy and need your own pipeline.
  • Compute: Lambda, when the function should live on AWS instead.