Alternatives Netlify
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The best Netlify alternatives in 2026
Last verified 21 September 2026. Antideploy wrote this page, and Antideploy is one of the seven options on it. So every statement about every platform, including Antideploy, comes from that platform's own pricing page or documentation, listed under Sources with the date it was checked. The list is grouped by what each platform is good for rather than ranked, and Antideploy's own limits are set out in full further down. If anything here is wrong or out of date, email antideploy@gmail.com and we will correct it within 48 hours.
The short answer
People leave Netlify for one of two reasons, and they lead to different places.
The first is credits. Netlify's free plan is 300 credits a month, a production deploy costs 15 of them, and when they run out every site on the account is paused until they reset. If you are hosting static sites or frontends, Cloudflare Workers serves static assets free and without limit, GitHub Pages is free for non-commercial static sites, and Vercel offers the same model of CDN, previews and functions, though its free plan is for non-commercial use only.
The second is server code. Netlify runs it as functions with a 60-second limit, in TypeScript, JavaScript or Go. If your backend needs to run longer, hold WebSocket connections or use another language, Render, Railway, Antideploy or DigitalOcean App Platform run it as an ordinary long-running server.
Pick by what you need
| If you want | Look at | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The same model as Netlify, from the makers of Next.js | Vercel | Global CDN, a preview deployment for every pull request and serverless functions; its free Hobby plan is non-commercial |
| Static hosting with no credit counting | Cloudflare Workers | Requests for static assets are free and unlimited on every plan |
| Free hosting for a non-commercial static site | GitHub Pages | Free for sites up to 1 GB, published straight from a repository |
| A backend that runs as a normal server | Render | Long-running web services, background workers and cron jobs, from $7 a month per instance |
| Servers and databases together, billed by use | Railway | Long-running containers, with Postgres, MySQL, Redis or MongoDB added in one click |
| Unlimited static sites plus apps with a server, where reaching a limit never takes a site offline | Antideploy | Static sites are never counted, and live apps keep serving when a limit is reached; prices are in rupees |
| Fixed monthly prices for a server | DigitalOcean App Platform | Containers from $5 a month, and up to 3 static sites free |
Why people look for a Netlify alternative
- The free plan is 300 credits a month, as a hard limit. A production deploy costs 15 credits, so the free plan allows at most 20 production deploys a month before anything else, such as bandwidth, uses a credit.
- When the credits run out, every site on the account is paused until they reset, not only new deploys.
- Server code runs as functions with a time limit: 60 seconds per request, 15 minutes for background functions and 30 seconds for scheduled functions. Functions are written in TypeScript, JavaScript or Go.
- WebSockets need another service. Netlify's own guide to real-time applications uses a third-party service, Ably.
- Paid plans are also credit-based: Personal is $9 a month for 1,000 credits, and Pro is $20 a month for 3,000 credits.
Netlify's strengths, for balance: a global CDN, deploy previews, custom domains with SSL on the free plan, Netlify Database for managed Postgres, and a Pro plan with unlimited team members for a flat $20. For a frontend that stays within its credits, it remains a strong choice.
The alternatives
Vercel
- Why switch from Netlify: The same model of CDN, previews and functions, with usage measured in invocations, CPU time and data transfer rather than credits, and Next.js from the company that makes it. Its free Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use only, and Pro is priced per seat.
- Best for: Next.js and other frontends that need a global edge network, a preview deployment for every pull request, instant rollback and automatic scaling.
- How it runs your app: Static files on a global CDN. Server code runs as Vercel Functions, which stop at 300 seconds on the Hobby plan and at up to 800 seconds on Pro. Request and response bodies are limited to 4.5 MB.
- Free plan: Hobby, for personal, non-commercial use only: 1 million function invocations, 4 hours of active CPU and 100 GB of data transfer a month.
- Paid plans from: Pro, $20 per seat a month, including $20 of usage, then billed by usage.
- Watch out for: The non-commercial rule on Hobby, and WebSocket connections that close when a function reaches its maximum duration. Databases come from Marketplace providers such as Neon rather than from Vercel itself.
- Website: https://vercel.com
Cloudflare Workers
- Why switch from Netlify: Static assets are served free and without limit on every plan, so a busy static site does not use up an allowance. Workers Paid starts at $5 a month.
- Best for: Static sites and lightweight APIs that need to be fast worldwide at the lowest cost.
- How it runs your app: Code runs in Workers isolates across Cloudflare's global network, with 128 MB of memory each. Other runtimes run in Cloudflare Containers. An existing Express app has to be wrapped in
httpServerHandlerwith thenodejs_compatflag. - Free plan: 100,000 Worker requests a day, with 10 ms of CPU each. Requests for static assets are free and unlimited.
- Paid plans from: Workers Paid, $5 a month minimum, including 10 million requests and 30 million CPU milliseconds.
- Watch out for: A per-request CPU budget and 128 MB of memory rule out running an unmodified Node.js or Python server. Its own database is D1, which is SQLite-based; Postgres has to be hosted elsewhere.
- Website: https://workers.cloudflare.com
GitHub Pages
- Why switch from Netlify: Free static hosting straight from a repository, with no credits to count. It is not allowed for an online business or a SaaS, and it runs no server code.
- Best for: Static sites that live in a GitHub repository, such as documentation, portfolios and project pages.
- How it runs your app: Publishes static files from a repository. There is no server-side code.
- Free plan: Sites up to 1 GB, with soft limits of 100 GB of bandwidth a month and 10 builds an hour.
- Paid plans from: There is no separate price for Pages.
- Watch out for: GitHub says Pages "is not intended for or allowed to be used as a free web-hosting service to run your online business, e-commerce site, or any other website that is primarily directed at either facilitating commercial transactions or providing commercial software as a service (SaaS)."
- Website: https://pages.github.com
Render
- Why switch from Netlify: Server code runs as an ordinary long-running server, with no per-request time limit on a web service, background workers of its own, and managed Postgres.
- Best for: Backends that should run as ordinary long-running servers, with background workers, cron jobs and private services, on a platform that works much like Heroku.
- How it runs your app: Web services run as long-running processes in Oregon, Ohio, Virginia, Frankfurt or Singapore. Background workers, cron jobs and private services are separate service types.
- Free plan: A free web service (0.1 CPU, 512 MB) that spins down after 15 minutes without traffic and takes about a minute to wake, within 750 free instance hours per workspace a month. Render's documentation says: "Do not use them for production applications." A free Postgres database holds 1 GB and expires 30 days after it is created.
- Paid plans from: $7 a month for an always-on instance with 0.5 CPU and 512 MB, and Postgres from $6 a month. The Hobby workspace plan is free and Pro is $25 a month, each plus compute.
- Watch out for: The free tier's one-minute wake-up and 30-day database. Preview environments and autoscaling need the Pro workspace plan.
- Website: https://render.com
Railway
- Why switch from Netlify: Long-running servers and their databases together in one project, with WebSocket connections that can stay open indefinitely.
- Best for: Apps made of several services and databases (an API, a worker, Postgres, Redis) in one project, billed by what they use.
- How it runs your app: Long-running containers, one per service and any number of services per project, in regions across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Services stay awake; an optional serverless mode puts a service to sleep after about 10 minutes without outbound traffic.
- Free plan: $1 of usage a month, with up to 0.5 GB of RAM, 1 vCPU and a 0.5 GB volume per service.
- Paid plans from: Hobby, $5 a month including $5 of usage. Beyond that, $10 per GB of RAM and $20 per vCPU a month, and $0.05 per GB of outbound data. Pro is $20 a month including $20 of usage.
- Watch out for: Usage-based billing means the bill moves with traffic and memory use.
- Website: https://railway.com
Antideploy (this site)
- Why switch from Netlify: Static sites are unlimited and never counted against a plan's limits, and reaching a limit never takes a live app offline: new deploys wait instead. Server code runs as an ordinary process in Node.js, Python, Go, Ruby or Java, with no time limit of Antideploy's own. The catch for static hosting: a static site is served by a machine that sleeps when idle, not from a CDN, and a sleeping one took 2.9 to 5.8 seconds to answer in our measurements.
- Best for: Full-stack and backend apps written by a coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or Antigravity, deployed by the agent itself, with Postgres created automatically and prices in Indian rupees.
- How it runs your app: Reads the code to find the stack, start command, port and database, then runs your start command as one long-running process in a container on a Fly.io machine in Singapore. It sets no time limit of its own on a request or a WebSocket.
- Free plan: Unlimited static sites, 2 live apps with a server, 10 successful deploys a month and 1 Postgres database. The terms allow commercial use.
- Paid plans from: Pro, ₹799 a month (₹159 for the first month): 15 live apps, unlimited deploys, 3 databases and 5 custom domains. ₹799 is a founding price for the first 25 Pro accounts; the standard price is ₹1,699 a month.
- Watch out for: One region (Singapore) and one instance per app. Everything sleeps when idle on every plan, static sites included, and the first request after sleeping took 2.9 to 13.9 seconds in our measurements. No preview deployments, no instant rollback and no team accounts. The full list is under Antideploy's limits.
- Website: https://antideploy.com
DigitalOcean App Platform
- Why switch from Netlify: Up to 3 static sites free, and a server at a fixed monthly price, from $5.
- Best for: A managed app platform with fixed monthly instance prices, next to the rest of DigitalOcean's cloud.
- How it runs your app: Containers on fixed-size instances, plus static sites.
- Free plan: Up to 3 apps that contain only static sites, with 1 GiB of outbound data per app.
- Paid plans from: $5 a month for a container with 1 shared vCPU and 512 MiB. Development databases are $7 a month per 512 MB. Extra outbound data is $0.02 per GiB.
- Watch out for: The free tier covers static sites only; an app with a server is paid from its first month.
- Website: https://www.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform
At a glance
| Platform | How your app runs | Free plan | Paid plans from | Database |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netlify | Functions: 60 s limit | 300 credits a month; sites pause when they run out | $9 a month | Netlify Database, managed Postgres |
| Vercel | Functions: 300 s limit on Hobby, up to 800 s on Pro | Hobby: non-commercial use only | $20 per seat a month | From Marketplace providers such as Neon |
| Cloudflare Workers | Isolates on a global network, 128 MB each | 100,000 requests a day; static requests unlimited | $5 a month | D1 (SQLite-based); Postgres elsewhere |
| GitHub Pages | Static files only | 1 GB site, 100 GB a month (soft limits) | No separate price | None |
| Render | Long-running server | Sleeps after 15 min, about 1 min to wake; not for production | $7 a month per instance | Managed Postgres from $6 a month; the free one expires after 30 days |
| Railway | Long-running container | $1 of usage a month | $5 a month, including $5 of usage | Postgres, MySQL, Redis or MongoDB in one click |
| Antideploy | Long-running process in Singapore; sleeps when idle | 2 apps with a server; commercial use allowed | ₹799 a month | Postgres created automatically |
| DigitalOcean App Platform | Container on a fixed-size instance | 3 static sites | $5 a month | Development database $7 a month |
How to choose
- Is it static, or does it have a server? A static site or frontend fits Cloudflare Workers, GitHub Pages or Vercel. A server that runs long requests, holds connections or uses a language Netlify Functions do not support fits Render, Railway, Antideploy or DigitalOcean App Platform.
- Does it make money? Vercel's Hobby plan is non-commercial, and GitHub Pages is not allowed for an online business or a SaaS. Read the terms of any free plan before a commercial project depends on it.
- What happens when you hit the limit? On Netlify's free plan, every site pauses. On Antideploy, live apps keep serving and only new deploys wait. Check this for any free plan you rely on.
- Can it sleep? Free servers on Render and Antideploy sleep when idle and are slow on the first request after that. On Antideploy this applies to static sites too: a sleeping static site took 2.9 to 5.8 seconds to answer in our measurements. Netlify, Vercel and Cloudflare serve static files from a CDN, where they do not sleep.
- Where are your users? Cloudflare and Vercel serve static files from a global network. Render runs servers in five regions, and Antideploy in Singapore only.
Antideploy's limits
Read these before choosing Antideploy:
- One region. Apps run in Singapore, with Mumbai, Tokyo and Sydney used only when Singapore has no room. The database is in Singapore. Users far from Asia will see slower responses.
- One instance per app, with 1 shared vCPU and 1 GB of memory. No autoscaling.
- Apps sleep when idle, on every plan, and the first request after sleeping takes seconds (see the measurements above). There is no always-on option today.
- Releases are not zero-downtime. The new version replaces the old one on the app's single machine. If the new version does not start, the app is down until a working version is deployed.
- No preview deployments, no instant rollback and no team accounts.
- Only Postgres is provisioned. No file storage, Redis, MySQL or MongoDB today.
- No separate worker processes. Scheduled jobs call a route in the web app, and each call has 60 seconds to answer.
- Your own Dockerfile can be deployed once your account is 7 days old. Everything Antideploy detects and builds itself works from the first minute.
- Folder uploads are limited to 28 MB. Larger projects deploy from GitHub.
- PHP runs only through your own Dockerfile.
- Every request passes through Cloudflare's network, which applies its own limits, such as a 100 MB request body.
- Prices are in Indian rupees, charged through Razorpay by UPI or card.
- Antideploy is a young platform run by a small team.
Frequently asked questions
Why was my Netlify site paused?
On Netlify's free plan, 300 credits a month is a hard limit. When the account uses them all, every site on it is paused and shows "Site not available" until the credits reset. A paid plan, from $9 a month for 1,000 credits, raises the limit.
How many deploys does Netlify's free plan allow?
A production deploy costs 15 credits and the free plan has 300 a month, so at most 20 production deploys a month, fewer if bandwidth or other usage also uses credits.
What is the best free alternative to Netlify for a static site?
Cloudflare Workers serves static assets free and without limit. GitHub Pages is free for sites up to 1 GB, but not for an online business or a SaaS. DigitalOcean App Platform hosts up to 3 static sites free. Antideploy hosts unlimited static sites on every plan, never counted against its limits, though they sleep when idle and are served from Singapore rather than a CDN.
Which Netlify alternative can run a backend?
Render, Railway, Antideploy and DigitalOcean App Platform all run a backend as an ordinary long-running server, with no function time limit, in languages beyond TypeScript, JavaScript and Go. Vercel and Cloudflare run server code as functions and Workers, with limits of their own.
Sources
Every price is as listed on the date shown. Prices change, so check the platform's own page before you commit.
- Netlify pricing (checked 21 September 2026): https://www.netlify.com/pricing/
- How Netlify credits work (checked 19 September 2026): https://docs.netlify.com/manage/accounts-and-billing/billing/billing-for-credit-based-plans/how-credits-work/
- Netlify Functions configuration (checked 19 September 2026): https://docs.netlify.com/build/functions/configuration/
- Netlify Database (checked 19 September 2026): https://docs.netlify.com/build/data-and-storage/netlify-database/
- Introducing Netlify's Free plan (checked 19 September 2026): https://www.netlify.com/blog/introducing-netlify-free-plan/
- Vercel pricing (checked 21 September 2026): https://vercel.com/pricing
- Vercel Functions limits (checked 19 September 2026): https://vercel.com/docs/functions/limitations
- Vercel fair use guidelines and commercial usage (checked 19 September 2026): https://vercel.com/docs/limits/fair-use-guidelines
- Vercel WebSockets (checked 19 September 2026): https://vercel.com/docs/functions/websockets
- Cloudflare Workers pricing (checked 21 September 2026): https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/pricing/
- Cloudflare Workers limits (checked 19 September 2026): https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/limits/
- Deploy an Express.js application on Workers (checked 19 September 2026): https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/tutorials/deploy-an-express-app/
- GitHub Pages limits (checked 21 September 2026): https://docs.github.com/en/pages/getting-started-with-github-pages/github-pages-limits
- Render free tier (checked 21 September 2026): https://render.com/docs/free
- Render compute plans (checked 21 September 2026): https://render.com/docs/compute-plans
- Render pricing (checked 19 September 2026): https://render.com/pricing
- Render regions (checked 19 September 2026): https://render.com/docs/regions
- Railway plans (checked 21 September 2026): https://docs.railway.com/pricing/plans
- Railway app sleeping (checked 19 September 2026): https://docs.railway.com/reference/app-sleeping
- Railway regions (checked 19 September 2026): https://docs.railway.com/deployments/regions
- Antideploy pricing: https://antideploy.com/pricing
- Antideploy terms: https://antideploy.com/terms
- Antideploy agent instructions: https://antideploy.com/llms.txt
- How Antideploy's wake-up times were measured, 19 September 2026: https://antideploy.com/compare/vercel#how-we-measured
- DigitalOcean App Platform pricing (checked 21 September 2026): https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/pricing/
- Netlify scheduled functions (checked 19 September 2026): https://docs.netlify.com/build/functions/scheduled-functions/
- Netlify, writing functions in TypeScript, JavaScript and Go (checked 19 September 2026): https://docs.netlify.com/build/functions/get-started/
- Netlify, Build Real-Time Applications with Web Sockets and Serverless (checked 19 September 2026): https://www.netlify.com/blog/web-sockets-in-a-serverless-world/
- Railway networking specs and limits (checked 19 September 2026): https://docs.railway.com/networking/public-networking/specs-and-limits
- Antideploy vs Netlify, including what happens at each plan's limit (checked 19 September 2026): https://antideploy.com/compare/netlify