A practical comparison of deployment platforms — Vercel, AWS, Railway, Fly.io, and others. Cost, complexity, scalability, and when each platform is the right choice.
Where should you deploy your web application? Vercel is the best choice for Next.js applications — zero-config deployment, edge network, and excellent DX. AWS offers maximum flexibility and scalability but requires DevOps expertise. Railway and Fly.io are middle-ground options with simpler interfaces than AWS but more flexibility than Vercel. For most web applications built with Next.js or React, Vercel is the default choice. Choose AWS when you need services beyond web hosting (ML, IoT, complex data pipelines) or when Vercel's pricing doesn't fit at scale.
Deployment is one of those decisions that feels like it shouldn't matter much — until it does. The wrong platform can mean spending 20% of your engineering time on infrastructure instead of product. The right platform makes deployment invisible.
We deploy most of our client projects on Vercel. This guide explains why — and when that's the wrong call.
What it is: A deployment platform built specifically for frontend frameworks, especially Next.js (Vercel created Next.js). Push to Git, get a production deployment.
Best for: Next.js applications, static sites, Jamstack, projects where developer experience and deployment speed matter most.
Not for: Custom backend services, long-running processes, applications with complex infrastructure needs.
What it is: A cloud infrastructure provider with 200+ services covering everything from virtual machines to machine learning. You can deploy anything on AWS — the question is whether you want to manage it.
Best for: Large-scale applications, complex infrastructure requirements, organizations with DevOps teams, applications needing ML/AI services, IoT, or data pipelines.
Not for: Small teams without DevOps expertise, simple web applications, MVP-stage products.
What it is: A modern deployment platform that's simpler than AWS but more flexible than Vercel. Deploy databases, backend services, and full-stack applications with a clean UI and straightforward pricing.
Best for: Full-stack applications needing both frontend and backend deployment, teams that want simplicity without Vercel's frontend-only limitations.
Not for: Applications needing the full breadth of AWS services, very high-scale deployments.
What it is: A platform for running applications close to users on a global edge network. Deploy Docker containers to regions worldwide.
Best for: Applications needing low-latency global deployment, containerized backends, applications where edge proximity matters (gaming, real-time).
Not for: Simple static sites, teams unfamiliar with Docker, projects where a single region is sufficient.
What it is: A straightforward cloud platform — deploy web services, static sites, and databases with minimal configuration. Positioned as "Heroku done right."
Best for: Straightforward web applications, teams migrating from Heroku, projects needing both frontend and backend hosting without complex infrastructure.
Not for: Next.js applications (Vercel is better), very high-scale or highly custom deployments.
| Factor | Vercel | AWS | Railway | Fly.io | Render |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of setup | Minutes | Hours to days | Minutes | 30 min | Minutes |
| Next.js support | Best (native) | Manual (Amplify, ECS) | Good | Good (Docker) | Adequate |
| Custom backends | Limited (serverless) | Full flexibility | Yes | Yes (Docker) | Yes |
| Database hosting | Postgres (via Neon) | RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora | Yes (Postgres, Redis) | Yes (Postgres) | Yes (Postgres, Redis) |
| Edge network | Global CDN + Edge Functions | CloudFront (setup required) | Limited | Global by default | Limited |
| CI/CD | Built-in (Git push) | CodePipeline (complex setup) | Built-in (Git push) | Built-in (flyctl) | Built-in (Git push) |
| Custom domains | Easy | Route 53 + ACM (complex) | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| SSH access | No | Yes (EC2) | No | Yes | Yes (paid) |
| Docker support | No | Yes (ECS, EKS, Fargate) | Yes | Yes (native) | Yes |
| DevOps needed | No | Yes, significant | Minimal | Some | Minimal |
| Vendor lock-in | Medium (framework-specific) | Low (standard infra) | Low | Low (Docker) | Low |
This is where comparisons get practical. Let's look at what you'd actually pay:
The pattern: Vercel is cheapest at small scale, most expensive at large scale. AWS is most expensive to start (DevOps cost) but cheapest to optimize at scale. Railway and Fly.io sit in the middle for both.
You're using Next.js. Full stop. Vercel built Next.js, and it shows. Server Components, ISR, Edge Middleware, image optimization, analytics — everything works out of the box, zero configuration. No other platform matches this integration.
You want to focus on product, not infrastructure. Push to Git, get a preview deployment on every pull request, auto-deploy to production on merge. No CI/CD pipelines to build, no Docker images to manage, no servers to monitor. Your team ships features instead of fighting infrastructure.
You need global performance without DevOps. Vercel's edge network serves your application from 30+ global locations. Static assets are cached at the edge. Edge Functions run close to users. You get CDN-level performance with zero configuration.
You're a small to medium team. Vercel's pricing and developer experience are optimized for teams of 1–20 developers shipping web applications. This is where it shines.
Where Vercel falls short:
You have DevOps expertise. AWS is the most powerful platform — if you know how to use it. If you don't, you'll spend weeks configuring VPCs, IAM roles, security groups, and load balancers instead of building your product.
Your application has complex infrastructure needs. Machine learning models (SageMaker), message queues (SQS), event streaming (Kinesis), data warehousing (Redshift), container orchestration (EKS) — if your architecture requires services beyond web hosting, AWS is likely where you'll end up.
You need cost optimization at scale. At high scale, AWS's granular pricing (reserved instances, spot instances, savings plans) lets you optimize costs in ways that managed platforms can't match. But you need engineers who know how to do this.
Compliance and data sovereignty matter. AWS has more regions, more compliance certifications, and more fine-grained control over data location than any other provider. If your application must run in a specific country or meet specific regulatory requirements, AWS likely has a region and compliance program that covers it.
Where AWS falls short:
Railway is the best middle ground when you need both frontend and backend deployment without AWS complexity. Deploy a Next.js app, a PostgreSQL database, a Redis cache, and a background worker — all from the same dashboard, all connected, all with reasonable pricing.
Fly.io is ideal when latency matters and you need your application running in multiple global regions. Deploy Docker containers close to your users. Fly.io handles the networking, load balancing, and certificate management.
Both are strong choices for full-stack applications where Vercel is too frontend-focused and AWS is too much overhead.
At Hunchbite, we typically deploy client projects like this:
This separation lets us optimize for each layer. The frontend gets the best developer experience (Vercel). The database gets managed reliability (Supabase). Backend services get flexibility without DevOps overhead (Railway). And when we need AWS's power, we use it — but only for the components that genuinely need it.
Starting with AWS when you don't need it. "We might scale" is not a reason to spend weeks building infrastructure. Start on Vercel or Railway. If you outgrow them — a good problem to have — migrate with the revenue to fund the DevOps work.
Ignoring preview deployments. Vercel and Railway auto-create preview URLs for every pull request. This is transformative for team workflows and client reviews. If your platform doesn't support this, you're missing out.
Coupling your application to your platform. Build your application to be deployable anywhere. Use environment variables for configuration, avoid platform-specific APIs when possible, and containerize backend services. The easier it is to migrate, the more negotiating leverage you have.
Underestimating bandwidth costs. Vercel, AWS CloudFront, and Fly.io all charge for bandwidth. If your application serves large files (images, video, downloads), calculate bandwidth costs before choosing a platform. An image-heavy site on Vercel can cost more than expected.
Every deployment decision comes down to one trade-off: managed simplicity vs. DIY flexibility.
Vercel and Railway optimize for simplicity. You trade granular control for a smooth developer experience and zero operational overhead. For 90% of web applications, this is the right trade-off.
AWS optimizes for flexibility. You trade simplicity for the ability to customize every layer of your infrastructure. For large-scale applications with complex requirements, this control is necessary.
Don't let infrastructure ego drive the decision. The teams shipping the fastest are the ones spending the least time on deployment. Choose the simplest platform that meets your actual requirements — not your imagined future requirements.
For more detail on our technology choices, check our technology stack page. If you're migrating existing infrastructure to the cloud, our cloud migration guide covers the process in detail. And for a deeper look at why we chose Next.js as our framework, read why we build everything with Next.js.
Need help choosing a deployment platform — or migrating from one to another? Get started with a conversation. We'll look at your application architecture, traffic patterns, and budget, and recommend the deployment setup that makes sense. No over-engineering, no unnecessary complexity.
If this guide resonated with your situation, let's talk. We offer a free 30-minute discovery call — no pitch, just honest advice on your specific project.
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