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niuniu
niuniu

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I Benchmarked 5 Free Hosting Platforms — The Speed Results Were Surprising

#webdev #opensource #free #productivity

Everyone Recommends Vercel. But Is It Actually the Fastest?

I kept seeing the same recommendations: "Just use Vercel" or "Netlify is great." But nobody was comparing actual performance.

So I deployed the exact same Next.js app on 5 free hosting platforms and ran real benchmarks.

The results changed my hosting strategy completely.

The Test Setup

App: A Next.js 14 app with:

  • Server-side rendering (SSR)
  • API routes
  • Image optimization
  • Database queries (Supabase)

Testing tool: Lighthouse + custom latency tests from 3 locations (US East, EU West, Asia Pacific)

Duration: 7 days of monitoring

🏆 The 5 Platforms

1. Vercel (Free Tier) 

vercel --prod
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  • Deploy time: 45 seconds
  • Cold start: 250ms
  • TTFB (US): 120ms
  • TTFB (EU): 180ms
  • TTFB (Asia): 340ms
  • Bandwidth: 100 GB/month

2. Netlify (Free Tier) 

netlify deploy --prod
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  • Deploy time: 60 seconds
  • Cold start: 400ms
  • TTFB (US): 150ms
  • TTFB (EU): 200ms
  • TTFB (Asia): 420ms
  • Bandwidth: 100 GB/month

3. Cloudflare Pages (Free Tier) 

wrangler pages deploy ./out
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  • Deploy time: 30 seconds
  • Cold start: 50ms ✨
  • TTFB (US): 80ms ✨
  • TTFB (EU): 85ms ✨
  • TTFB (Asia): 90ms ✨
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited ✨

4. Railway (Free with $5 credit) 

railway up
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  • Deploy time: 90 seconds
  • Cold start: 800ms
  • TTFB (US): 200ms
  • TTFB (EU): 280ms
  • TTFB (Asia): 450ms
  • Bandwidth: $5 credit covers ~50 GB

5. Render (Free Tier) 

# Connect GitHub repo
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  • Deploy time: 120 seconds
  • Cold start: 1200ms
  • TTFB (US): 250ms
  • TTFB (EU): 320ms
  • TTFB (Asia): 500ms
  • Bandwidth: 100 GB/month

Performance Comparison Table

Platform Cold Start TTFB (avg) Deploy Speed Bandwidth Score
Cloudflare Pages 50ms 85ms 30s Unlimited ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Vercel 250ms 210ms 45s 100 GB ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Netlify 400ms 250ms 60s 100 GB ⭐⭐⭐
Railway 800ms 310ms 90s ~50 GB ⭐⭐⭐
Render 1200ms 350ms 120s 100 GB ⭐⭐

Key Findings

1. Cloudflare Pages is the Undisputed Speed King

Cloudflare's edge network gives it a massive advantage. TTFB was consistent globally because they serve from 300+ edge locations.

// Cloudflare Pages handles SSR at the edge
export const config = {
  runtime: 'edge', // This runs on Cloudflare's edge network
}
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2. Vercel Wins on DX (Developer Experience)

While not the fastest, Vercel's integration with Next.js is seamless:

  • Automatic preview deployments
  • Git-based workflow
  • Built-in analytics

3. Render's Free Tier Has Serious Cold Start Issues

The 1.2 second cold start means users will see a loading spinner on first visit. Not acceptable for production.

4. Railway is Best for Full-Stack Apps

Unlike others that focus on frontend/static, Railway lets you run:

  • Databases
  • Background workers
  • WebSocket servers
  • Docker containers

5. Netlify is the Middle Ground

Not the fastest, not the slowest. Best for:

  • Static sites with forms
  • JAMstack apps
  • Simple SPAs

My Recommendation 

Frontend/Static → Cloudflare Pages (fastest + unlimited bandwidth)
Next.js SSR    → Vercel (best DX + framework support)
Full-Stack     → Railway (databases + workers)
Simple Sites   → Netlify (forms + easy setup)
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For my projects, I now use:

  • Cloudflare Pages for static sites and marketing pages
  • Vercel for Next.js applications
  • Railway for backend APIs and databases

Combined with Supabase for the database layer and MonkeyCode for AI-assisted development, you get a complete production stack for $0.

The Cost of "Free"

One thing to watch: free tiers have limits. Set up monitoring:

# Vercel usage
vercel usage

# Cloudflare analytics
wrangler pages deployment list
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What's Your Hosting Stack?

I'm curious what platforms others are using. Are you seeing similar results? Drop a comment with your benchmarks!

P.S. For building and testing apps locally before deploying, I use MonkeyCode — it's free, open-source, and makes AI-assisted coding accessible to everyone.

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