10 Best Vercel Alternatives for Next.js in 2026

The best Vercel alternatives for Next.js in 2026 are Temps, Railway, Render, Netlify, Coolify, Fly.io, Cloudflare Pages, DigitalOcean App Platform, AWS Amplify, and Docker on a VPS. The right pick depends on whether you want managed simplicity or full ownership. For teams cutting costs, self-hosted options like Temps (~$6/mo) include built-in analytics, error tracking, and session replay — no third-party tools needed. For managed alternatives without per-seat pricing, Railway and Render are the most popular options.

Vercel Pro costs $20 per seat per month according to Vercel's pricing page. A five-person team pays $100/month before a single visitor hits the site. Add bandwidth overages at $0.15/GB after 1TB, serverless function charges, and image optimization fees, and bills climb quickly. One developer was famously billed $46,485 after a traffic spike on a static site — an extreme case, but a cautionary one.

The self-hosting market is projected to grow from $15.6 billion to $85.2 billion by 2034 (Market.us, 2025). Developers aren't just complaining about Vercel pricing on Reddit anymore — they're migrating. This guide compares ten Vercel alternatives across pricing, Next.js support, features, and honest trade-offs. Every price figure comes from official sources, checked in March 2026.

Related: Complete Vercel pricing breakdown for 2026

TL;DR: Vercel Pro's $20/seat/month pricing pushes a 5-person team past $100/mo before usage charges. Self-hosted alternatives like Temps cost ~$6/mo total with no per-seat fees, plus built-in analytics, error tracking, and session replay. Managed alternatives like Railway and Render start at $5/mo but add up fast with databases and team seats.

What is the cheapest way to host a Next.js app in 2026? Temps on a Hetzner CX22 VPS (~$4/mo) is the cheapest full-featured option — it costs $6/mo on Temps Cloud and includes deployment, analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring with no additional subscriptions. Cloudflare Pages is free for static Next.js. Docker on a bare Hetzner VPS ($4/mo) is the cheapest if you manage everything yourself.

Which Vercel Alternative Is Best for Next.js in 2026?

For most teams, Temps is the best Vercel alternative for Next.js in 2026 — it runs full SSR/ISR, deploys via git push, and bundles analytics, session replay, error tracking, and uptime monitoring into a single Rust binary that costs ~$6/mo on Temps Cloud. No per-seat fees, no bandwidth bills, and free to self-host (Apache 2.0).

If you need a fully managed platform with no ops work, Railway is the best option: consumption-based pricing with no per-seat charges, full SSR support, and built-in database provisioning. Netlify is strong for static-first JAMstack sites, though its Next.js support requires an adapter plugin.

Here's how the top three compare head-to-head:

Why Are Developers Looking for Vercel Alternatives?

Vercel's per-seat pricing is the most common pain point. At $20/seat/month per Vercel's pricing page, a 10-person team pays $200/month just for platform access — before any compute, bandwidth, or add-on charges. The September 2025 restructuring helped by including a $20 spending credit, but didn't eliminate the fundamental per-seat model.

Cost isn't the only reason

Vendor lock-in is a growing concern. Features like Vercel's Edge Middleware, Image Optimization API, and @vercel/analytics tie your code to their platform. Moving a mature Next.js project off Vercel often means rewriting middleware handlers, swapping image pipelines, and replacing analytics integrations. That switching cost grows with every deploy.

Data sovereignty matters too. The GDPR enforcement tracker shows over EUR 5.9 billion in total fines since 2018 (CMS Law, 2026). Teams in regulated industries — healthcare, finance, government — increasingly need infrastructure they control. Vercel's Enterprise tier offers data residency options, but at roughly $45,000/year median according to Vendr's buyer guide, it's out of reach for most startups.

But is self-hosting right for everyone? Not necessarily. Here's the full spectrum.

Related: How to migrate from Vercel to self-hosted

Quick Comparison: All 10 Vercel Alternatives

The key difference: managed platforms charge per seat or per usage, while self-hosted options charge only for infrastructure. A $6/month Hetzner VPS handles what would cost $100–500/month on managed platforms for a 5-person team.

1. Temps — Best All-in-One Self-Hosted Alternative

Temps replaces six paid SaaS tools with a single Rust binary: deployments, web analytics, session replay, error tracking, uptime monitoring, and managed databases. A mid-stage team pays $300–600/month for equivalent SaaS tooling according to MassiveGrid (2026). Temps on a Hetzner CX22 costs about $6/month on Temps Cloud.

Why Temps stands out

Every other alternative on this list handles deployment. None of them bundle the observability stack you'll inevitably need. You'll still reach for Sentry ($26/mo), Plausible ($9/mo), FullStory ($199+/mo), and a monitoring tool ($15/mo) — adding $150–300/month on top of your hosting bill. Temps includes all of that.

The technical foundation matters too. Temps uses Pingora as its reverse proxy — the same technology Cloudflare built to replace Nginx, handling over 1 trillion requests per day across their network (Cloudflare, 2024). That's real production infrastructure, not a hobby project wrapper around Nginx.

Temps is Apache 2.0, meaning the self-hosted version is free with no deployment caps, no usage limits, and no seat restrictions. Temps Cloud costs approximately $6/mo — Hetzner server cost plus 30% margin — with no per-seat fees and no bandwidth charges.

Adding Temps analytics to a Next.js app

Temps ships @temps-sdk/react-analytics for Next.js. Add the provider to your root layout:

import { TempsAnalyticsProvider } from "@temps-sdk/react-analytics";

export default function RootLayout({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {
  return (
    <html>
      <body>
        <TempsAnalyticsProvider
          basePath="/api/_temps"
          enableSessionRecording={true}
        >
          {children}
        </TempsAnalyticsProvider>
      </body>
    </html>
  );
}

Track custom events with useTrackEvent:

"use client";
import { useTrackEvent } from "@temps-sdk/react-analytics";

export function SignupButton() {
  const trackEvent = useTrackEvent();
  return (
    <button onClick={() => trackEvent("signup_clicked", { plan: "free" })}>
      Get started
    </button>
  );
}

Pros

• Single binary install — no Docker Compose orchestration required
• Built-in analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring
• Pingora reverse proxy (Cloudflare-built, open-source) with zero-downtime deployments
• Multi-node clustering with WireGuard mesh networking
• Free to self-host (Apache 2.0), ~$6/mo on Temps Cloud (Hetzner cost + 30%)
• No per-seat pricing, no bandwidth bills

Cons

• Smaller community than Coolify (newer project)
• Fewer one-click templates than Coolify's 280+
• Enterprise SSO/SAML still in development

Best for

Teams that want to consolidate deployment and observability into one tool. Especially effective for indie hackers and startups who can't justify $200–600/mo in monitoring subscriptions.

Citation capsule: Temps bundles deployment, web analytics, session replay, error tracking, uptime monitoring, and managed databases into a single Rust binary that runs on a ~$6/month VPS. Equivalent SaaS tooling costs $300–600/month for a mid-stage team (MassiveGrid, 2026). Temps is free to self-host (Apache 2.0), with Temps Cloud at ~$6/mo (Hetzner cost + 30%), no per-seat fees, and no bandwidth charges.

Temps uses Pingora as its reverse proxy — the same technology Cloudflare built to handle over 1 trillion requests per day. The single-binary architecture means no Docker Compose orchestration for the platform itself.

A 5-person team switching from Vercel Pro ($100/mo) to Temps eliminates the per-seat fee entirely and gains built-in analytics, error tracking, and session replay — tools that cost $26+/mo (Sentry Team plan), $9+/mo (Plausible Starter), and $199+/mo (FullStory) when sourced separately.

Related: How Temps saves 80–95% vs Vercel

2. Coolify — Best Self-Hosted App Marketplace

Coolify has the largest community of any self-hosted PaaS with over 52,400 GitHub stars and 280+ one-click service templates. Docker adoption reached 71.1% in the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, up from 54.7% in the 2024 edition — a 16-point jump in a single year — and Coolify rides that wave with a polished Docker-based UI.

What you get

One-click installs for PostgreSQL, Redis, MinIO, Plausible, and hundreds more services. Coolify wraps Docker Compose in a clean web dashboard with SSL, backups, and multi-server support over SSH. Their managed cloud offering starts at $5/month.

But here's the trade-off: Coolify doesn't include analytics, error tracking, or session replay. You'll need to add those yourself — which means deploying and maintaining separate Plausible, Sentry, and session recording instances. That adds operational complexity and $50–170/month in additional SaaS costs.

Pros

• 280+ one-click services — largest app marketplace in self-hosted PaaS
• Active community with frequent releases
• Multi-server support via SSH
• Managed cloud option from $5/mo

Cons

• No built-in observability tools — analytics, error tracking, session replay all separate
• v5 rewrite showed no publicly visible commits as of March 2026 — future direction unclear
• Higher resource consumption than lighter alternatives like Dokku

Best for

Developers who want a wide app marketplace and don't mind assembling monitoring from separate tools.

3. Railway — Best Managed Alternative for Full-Stack Apps

Railway uses consumption-based pricing with no per-seat charges — you pay for actual CPU, memory, and network usage. Their Pro plan requires a $5/month minimum spend with $10 included usage according to Railway's pricing page. For small teams with light workloads, that's cheaper than Vercel.

How Next.js runs on Railway

Railway supports Next.js with full SSR through Nixpacks-based builds. Push your code, Railway detects Next.js, and deploys a containerized build. You get custom domains, automatic SSL, and integrated PostgreSQL or Redis databases. The DX is close to Vercel's — minus the edge runtime.

Where Railway gets expensive is scale. CPU is billed at $0.000463/vCPU/minute and memory at $0.000231/GB/minute. A Next.js app using 1 vCPU and 1GB RAM 24/7 costs roughly $30/month in compute alone. Add a database and the bill climbs to $40–60/month.

Pros

• No per-seat pricing — pay only for resources consumed
• Excellent developer experience with instant deploys
• Built-in PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, and MongoDB provisioning
• Usage-based model benefits low-traffic apps

Cons

• Costs escalate quickly with production traffic (24/7 compute adds up)
• No built-in analytics or monitoring tools
• Bandwidth charged separately at $0.10/GB
• No edge runtime support

Best for

Small teams deploying full-stack apps with databases who want managed simplicity without per-seat pricing.

4. Render — Best Free Tier for Getting Started

Render offers a free tier with 750 hours of web service runtime, 100GB bandwidth, and managed PostgreSQL for 90 days. Their paid plans start at $7/month per web service according to Render's pricing page. After Heroku eliminated its free tier in November 2022, Render absorbed a significant chunk of that migration traffic.

Next.js on Render

Render supports Next.js through Docker or native Node.js builds. You get automatic SSL, custom domains, and a straightforward dashboard. The platform handles ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration) and SSR without custom configuration.

The catch? Render's free tier spins down after 15 minutes of inactivity. Cold starts can take 30–60 seconds. For production apps, you need the paid tier — and at $7/month per service, a Next.js frontend plus an API backend plus a database hits $21–35/month before you've added team features.

Pros

• Generous free tier for side projects
• Clean, simple dashboard
• Native PostgreSQL and Redis support
• Automatic HTTPS and custom domains

Cons

• Free tier cold starts (30–60 seconds after inactivity)
• No built-in analytics or error tracking
• No preview environments on free tier
• Paid plans add up with multiple services

Best for

Solo developers and side projects that need a free starting point with an easy upgrade path.

5. Netlify — Best for Static-First JAMstack Sites

Netlify's free tier includes 100GB bandwidth, 300 build minutes, and 125,000 serverless function invocations per month according to Netlify's pricing page. Pro costs $19/seat/month. Netlify was built for static-first architectures, and it shows — their CDN and edge functions are excellent for JAMstack sites, but full Next.js SSR support requires their adapter and comes with limitations.

The Next.js compatibility question

Netlify's Next.js support has improved significantly, but it's not first-party. You need @netlify/plugin-nextjs to translate Next.js features into Netlify's runtime. Most features work — SSR, ISR, API routes, image optimization — but edge cases around middleware and advanced routing can cause issues. If you're building a heavily dynamic Next.js app, you might hit friction.

Pros

• Excellent CDN for static assets and global edge delivery
• Form handling and identity management built in
• Good CI/CD pipeline with deploy previews
• Large community and plugin ecosystem

Cons

• $19/seat on Pro — per-seat pricing adds up for teams
• Next.js support requires adapter plugin (not native)
• Analytics is a $9/month add-on
• Bandwidth overages at $55/100GB on Pro

Best for

Teams building static-first or JAMstack sites who don't need full SSR capabilities.

Related: Netlify hidden costs and alternatives

6. Cloudflare Pages — Best Edge Performance for Static Sites

Cloudflare Pages offers unlimited bandwidth on all plans — including the free tier — with 500 builds per month and support for up to 5 concurrent builds according to Cloudflare's pricing page. The Workers Paid plan at $5/month unlocks the full edge runtime. Cloudflare runs in 330+ cities across 120+ countries, making it the largest edge network available to individual developers.

Running Next.js on the edge

Full Next.js support on Cloudflare requires OpenNext — a community adapter that translates Next.js features to Cloudflare Workers. It works for many use cases, but isn't officially supported by Vercel. Expect occasional compatibility gaps with the latest Next.js features.

That said, for static and hybrid Next.js apps, Cloudflare Pages is hard to beat on price. Unlimited bandwidth alone saves hundreds compared to Vercel's $0.15/GB overages.

Pros

• Unlimited bandwidth on all plans (including free)
• 330+ global edge locations — fastest CDN option
• Workers integration for server-side logic
• Free tier is genuinely generous (unlimited sites, unlimited bandwidth)

Cons

• Full Next.js SSR requires OpenNext adapter (not native)
• Workers runtime has compatibility limitations (no full Node.js API)
• Build limits can be restrictive for active teams (500/month on free)
• No built-in databases (D1 is available separately)

Best for

Static-heavy Next.js apps that prioritize global performance and want unlimited bandwidth without usage fees.

7. Fly.io — Best for Global Edge Containers

Fly.io runs Docker containers on hardware in 30+ regions worldwide. Plans start with a $5/month minimum spend, and you pay per-second for compute according to Fly.io's pricing page. Note: Fly.io discontinued its free tier in October 2024 — all apps require a paid account.

Next.js on Fly.io

Fly.io runs Next.js as a Docker container. You get full SSR support, multi-region deployment, and the ability to place your app close to your users. The fly launch CLI auto-detects Next.js and generates a Dockerfile.

The learning curve is steeper than Vercel or Railway. You're managing containers, scaling policies, and machine sizes. But the control is real — you can run your Next.js app in São Paulo, Tokyo, and Amsterdam simultaneously without paying $45,000/year for Enterprise geo-routing.

Pros

• True multi-region deployment at developer-friendly prices
• Per-second billing — no paying for idle time
• Full Docker support means full Node.js compatibility
• Integrated PostgreSQL with read replicas (Fly Postgres)

Cons

• Steeper learning curve than managed platforms
• Fly Postgres is "not managed" — you handle backups and failover
• Hobby plan ($5/mo minimum) uses shared-CPU machines — expect slower performance than dedicated instances
• Networking complexity increases with multi-region setups

Best for

Teams that need multi-region deployments without enterprise pricing, and are comfortable with container-based workflows.

8. DigitalOcean App Platform — Best Simple Managed Hosting

DigitalOcean App Platform starts at $5/month for a basic web service with 1GB RAM and 1 vCPU according to DigitalOcean's pricing page. There's a free static site tier too. No per-seat pricing. DigitalOcean reported $19.4 million in annual recurring revenue growth in their 2025 earnings, showing consistent developer demand for simpler cloud alternatives.

Next.js support

App Platform detects Next.js automatically and deploys via buildpacks. SSR works, custom domains are included, and managed databases are one click away. It's straightforward — less flexible than Fly.io, but much simpler to set up.

The limitations show at scale. No edge runtime, no preview environments on the basic tier, and the platform doesn't support monorepo configurations well. For a single Next.js app with moderate traffic, it's solid. For complex setups, you'll outgrow it.

Pros

• Simple, predictable pricing with no per-seat charges
• Auto-detect and deploy for Next.js
• Managed databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis) in the same platform
• Good documentation and community support

Cons

• No edge runtime or global CDN (single region)
• Limited preview environment support
• No built-in analytics or monitoring
• Monorepo support is weak

Best for

Small teams who want managed hosting without the complexity of AWS or the cost of Vercel's per-seat model.

9. AWS Amplify — Best for Teams Already on AWS

AWS Amplify offers pay-per-use pricing: $0.01/build minute, $0.023/GB served, and $0.0000556/request for SSR according to AWS Amplify's pricing page. There are no seat fees — access is managed through AWS IAM. For teams already running on AWS, Amplify integrates natively with other AWS services.

Next.js on Amplify

Amplify supports Next.js 14+ with SSR, ISR, middleware, and image optimization. Deployments trigger from Git pushes, and preview environments work out of the box. AWS invested heavily in Next.js support after recognizing how many developers were choosing Vercel purely for Next.js deployment convenience.

The downside? AWS pricing complexity. Calculating your monthly Amplify bill requires understanding build minutes, data transfer, request counts, and storage. And if your Next.js app calls Lambda functions, DynamoDB, or S3, each service bills separately. The total is often lower than Vercel — but much harder to predict.

Pros

• No per-seat pricing (IAM-based access)
• Native integration with AWS ecosystem (Lambda, S3, CloudFront)
• Full Next.js SSR support including ISR and middleware
• Preview environments for every pull request

Cons

• Complex pricing model — hard to predict monthly costs
• AWS console UX is notoriously dense
• Slow build times compared to Vercel's optimized pipeline
• Debugging deployment failures requires AWS-specific knowledge

Best for

Teams with existing AWS infrastructure who want to keep everything under one cloud provider.

10. Docker + VPS — Best for Maximum Control

A Hetzner CX22 VPS (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM) costs EUR 3.79/month according to Hetzner's pricing page. Pair that with Docker, a reverse proxy like Caddy or Traefik, and a CI/CD script, and you've got a fully self-managed Next.js deployment for under $5/month. No seat limits. No bandwidth charges. No vendor lock-in.

Some developers run 10+ Next.js projects on a single CX22 instance with Caddy as the reverse proxy. The setup takes 1–2 hours initially, but maintenance becomes the hidden cost — SSL renewals, security patches, Docker updates, and log management all fall on you.

What you need to set up

You'll need Docker, a reverse proxy (Caddy for automatic HTTPS is the easiest), a CI/CD pipeline (GitHub Actions works), and patience. There's no dashboard, no one-click deploys, no preview environments — unless you build them yourself.

The trade-off is total. You get complete control and the lowest possible cost. You lose every convenience that platforms provide. For experienced developers who enjoy infrastructure work, that's fine. For teams that want to ship features, the operational overhead can slow you down.

Pros

• Cheapest possible option (VPS cost only)
• Complete control over every aspect of the stack
• No vendor lock-in whatsoever
• Unlimited projects, bandwidth, and team access

Cons

• No dashboard, no deploy previews, no built-in CI/CD
• You maintain everything: SSL, updates, security, monitoring
• Setup time is 1–2 hours minimum (more for production-grade)
• No built-in analytics, error tracking, or any observability

Best for

Experienced developers who enjoy infrastructure work and want the absolute lowest cost with maximum control.

Related: How to deploy Next.js to a VPS manually

How Do These Alternatives Compare on Total Cost?

Total cost of ownership matters more than sticker price. Vercel Pro at $20/seat/month sounds reasonable until you factor in bandwidth overages, serverless compute, and the external tools you'll need for monitoring. The self-hosted cloud platform market hit $19.7 billion in 2025 and is growing at 14.6% annually (The Business Research Company, 2026) — because developers are doing this math.

Here's what a 5-person team actually pays per month:

The "monitoring tax" is the hidden equalizer. Every platform except Temps requires external analytics, error tracking, and uptime monitoring. Those tools typically cost $50–170/month for a small team — often exceeding the hosting cost itself. When you include the full stack, self-hosted platforms without built-in observability aren't actually cheaper than managed alternatives.

Citation capsule: A 5-person team on Vercel Pro pays $100/month in seat fees before any usage charges, per Vercel's pricing page. Adding external monitoring tools (Sentry, Plausible, uptime) brings the total to $150–250/month. Self-hosted alternatives with built-in observability reduce that to as low as ~$6/month.

What About Next.js Feature Compatibility?

Not all Vercel alternatives support every Next.js feature equally. Since Vercel builds Next.js, they'll always have first-party support for new features. According to the Next.js 15 release blog (Vercel, 2024), features like Partial Prerendering, Server Actions, and the App Router were designed with Vercel's infrastructure in mind.

Here's a compatibility breakdown:

Docker-based platforms (Temps, Railway, Fly.io, DIY) run Next.js in standalone Node.js mode, which supports the full feature set. Adapter-based platforms (Netlify, Cloudflare) translate Next.js to their runtimes, which can lag behind on newer features.

Does that matter for your app? If you're using basic SSR and API routes, every platform on this list works fine. If you're pushing the edges of Next.js — Partial Prerendering, advanced middleware, streaming SSR — test your specific features before committing.

Using @vercel/og Outside Vercel: Standalone Node.js

@vercel/og works in a standard Node.js API route — it does not require the Vercel Edge runtime. The package generates OG images using Satori and a WASM-based renderer. On every platform that runs standard Node.js (Temps, Railway, Render, Fly.io, DigitalOcean, Docker + VPS), it works as a regular API route with no edge dependency.

Why developers hit this issue

@vercel/og was originally documented as an Edge function only. Vercel's own examples include export const runtime = "edge" — which routes the handler to Vercel's Edge Network. Deploy that same file to Railway or a VPS and it either fails to build or returns errors at runtime, because there is no Edge runtime to target.

The fix is to omit export const runtime = "edge" entirely:

// app/api/og/route.tsx — works on Temps, Railway, Render, Fly.io, Docker VPS
// Do NOT add: export const runtime = "edge"
import { ImageResponse } from "@vercel/og";

export async function GET(request: Request) {
  const { searchParams } = new URL(request.url);
  const title = searchParams.get("title") ?? "My Page";

  return new ImageResponse(
    (
      <div
        style={{
          display: "flex",
          fontSize: 60,
          background: "black",
          color: "white",
          width: "100%",
          height: "100%",
          alignItems: "center",
          justifyContent: "center",
        }}
      >
        {title}
      </div>
    ),
    { width: 1200, height: 630 }
  );
}

Without the runtime = "edge" directive, Next.js routes this through the standard Node.js runtime. @vercel/og loads its WASM renderer in both environments — the API is identical.

Using @vercel/og as a standalone CLI script (no Next.js)

To generate OG images at build time or from a Node.js script:

npm install @vercel/og

// generate-og.tsx — run with: tsx generate-og.tsx
import { ImageResponse } from "@vercel/og";
import { writeFileSync } from "fs";

const response = new ImageResponse(
  <div style={{ fontSize: 48, background: "white", padding: 40 }}>
    Hello from Node.js — no Vercel, no Edge runtime
  </div>,
  { width: 1200, height: 630 }
);

const buffer = Buffer.from(await response.arrayBuffer());
writeFileSync("og-output.png", buffer);

No Vercel deployment. No Edge runtime. Just Node.js.

Platform compatibility for @vercel/og

The rule: remove export const runtime = "edge" and @vercel/og works on every Node.js-capable platform. Cloudflare Workers requires extra configuration because it doesn't expose the full Node.js API surface.

Which Alternative Should You Pick?

The right choice depends on your team's priorities. Here's a decision framework based on what we've seen work:

Choose Temps if...

You want deployment and observability in one tool. You don't want to manage separate Sentry, Plausible, and FullStory subscriptions. You're comfortable with self-hosting (or using Temps Cloud at ~$6/mo). You want the lowest total cost of ownership.

Choose Coolify if...

You want the widest app marketplace and community support. You're already comfortable with Docker. You don't mind assembling your monitoring stack from separate tools.

Choose Railway if...

You want managed hosting with no per-seat fees. Your app needs databases alongside the frontend. You prefer paying for what you use over flat monthly rates.

Choose Cloudflare Pages if...

Your app is primarily static or uses light server-side logic. Unlimited bandwidth matters. You want the fastest global CDN without paying for it.

Choose Docker + VPS if...

You want maximum control and minimum cost. You enjoy infrastructure work. You have the time and expertise to maintain everything yourself.

Related: 5 ways to deploy a Next.js app

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the cheapest Vercel alternative for Next.js?

Temps at ~$6/mo is the cheapest full-featured Vercel alternative — it includes git-push deployments, preview environments, web analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring in a single binary. No per-seat fees. No usage-based billing. Runs on a Hetzner CX22 at EUR 3.79/mo. Temps is free to self-host (Apache 2.0).

For pure static sites, Cloudflare Pages is free with unlimited bandwidth (requires the OpenNext adapter for SSR). For bare-bones hosting where you manage everything, Docker on a Hetzner VPS at EUR 3.79/mo is the absolute floor — but you assemble the monitoring stack yourself.

Can I run Next.js SSR without Vercel?

Yes. Any platform that runs Docker or Node.js supports Next.js SSR through standalone output mode. Set output: "standalone" in next.config.js, and your app runs as a self-contained Node.js server. Every alternative on this list supports this approach. The only features that require Vercel-specific infrastructure are Edge Middleware and Vercel-native analytics.

Is Netlify or Cloudflare Pages better for Next.js?

Cloudflare Pages offers unlimited bandwidth and a larger edge network (330+ cities vs Netlify's CDN), making it better for traffic-heavy static sites. Netlify's Next.js adapter is more mature and supports more SSR features out of the box. For purely static Next.js sites, Cloudflare wins on cost. For apps with significant server-side rendering, Netlify's adapter handles more edge cases. Neither matches the full compatibility of Docker-based deployments.

How do I migrate from Vercel to a self-hosted platform?

The migration involves three steps: set output: "standalone" in your Next.js config, replace any Vercel-specific APIs (like @vercel/analytics or @vercel/og), and configure your new platform's deploy pipeline. Most migrations take 15 minutes to 2 hours depending on how tightly your code is coupled to Vercel's APIs. Our complete migration guide covers both managed and DIY paths with working code.

Do self-hosted alternatives support preview environments?

Temps, Coolify, and most managed platforms (Railway, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages) support automatic preview environments for pull requests. Docker + VPS requires building this yourself. Preview environments are one of Vercel's best features, but they're no longer exclusive — the self-hosting market's 14.6% annual growth (The Business Research Company, 2026) has pushed self-hosted platforms to match managed-platform DX features.

The Bottom Line

Vercel is still excellent software. The DX is unmatched for zero-config Next.js deployment. But at $20/seat/month with usage-based overages, it's not the only option — and for many teams, it's not the most cost-effective one.

If you want managed simplicity without per-seat pricing, Railway and Render are strong choices. If you want the fastest CDN with unlimited bandwidth, Cloudflare Pages is hard to beat for static-heavy sites. If you want maximum control, Docker on a VPS gives you everything for under $5/month.

But if you want deployment and observability in a single tool — analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring without bolting on $150–300/month in SaaS subscriptions — that's where self-hosted platforms with built-in observability stand apart. The self-hosting market's projected growth to $85.2 billion by 2034 (Market.us, 2025) reflects a real shift in how teams think about infrastructure ownership.

The best Vercel alternative for Next.js in 2026 is the one that matches your team's priorities. Cost, control, convenience — pick two, or choose Temps and skip the trade-off.

Related: Introducing Temps: a self-hosted Vercel alternative

Related: Best deployment platforms for solo developers in 2026

Last updated June 7, 2026. Pricing figures sourced from each platform's official pricing page. Fly.io discontinued its free tier in October 2024. Verify current pricing before committing.