What Is Vercel?
Vercel is a cloud platform for deploying frontend applications. It's the company behind Next.js, and it's built to make deploying web projects as simple as pushing to Git.
We've been deploying client sites to Vercel for over a year now. Every project runs on it. Here's what we've learned.
What Works Well
Zero-Config Deployments
Push to GitHub, and your site is live. Vercel auto-detects your framework (React, Next.js, Vite, etc.) and configures the build. I've never had to write a Dockerfile or fiddle with server configs.
Preview Deployments
Every pull request gets its own preview URL automatically. This is incredibly useful for client work — we send clients a preview link and they can review changes before they go live. No staging server to maintain.
Speed
Vercel's edge network is fast. Our sites consistently score 90+ on Lighthouse performance. Static assets are cached at the edge globally, and serverless functions spin up quickly.
The Free Tier
For freelancers and small teams, the Hobby plan is generous. You get unlimited static sites, 100GB bandwidth, and serverless functions. We ran our first several client sites on it before upgrading.
What Could Be Better
Pricing at Scale
Once you outgrow the free tier, the Pro plan is $20/month per team member. For a solo freelancer that's fine, but if you're adding collaborators or clients, costs add up.
Vendor Lock-in with Next.js Features
Some Next.js features (like ISR and middleware) work best — or only — on Vercel. If you're building a Next.js app, you should be aware that migrating to another host later may mean losing some functionality.
Build Minutes
The free tier has limited build minutes. If you're deploying frequently across multiple projects, you might hit the cap. We've had months where we needed to be strategic about when we deployed.
Who Should Use It
If you're a freelance developer building frontend-focused sites and apps, Vercel is hard to beat. The workflow is seamless, the free tier is real, and your sites will be fast.
If you need a traditional server with SSH access, databases, or backend-heavy workloads, look at Railway or Fly.io instead.
Bottom Line
Vercel is where we deploy everything. The Git-push-to-deploy workflow has saved us hundreds of hours of DevOps work we'd rather spend building. It's not the cheapest option at scale, but for freelancers and small teams, the value is excellent.