Frontend and app hosting · Comparison
Vercel vs Netlify vs Cloudflare Workers: Cloudflare Workers leads at 8.6; our scenario from $5.12
We read the pricing, security and docs pages of three hosting platforms on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. How each one bills, what 3 developers with 10 million requests and 1 TB a month cost, and who should pick which.
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On six indicators read from each vendor's public pages, Cloudflare Workers scores 8.6, Netlify 7.3 and Vercel 6.3 out of 10. For our reference scenario, a team of 3 developers and a web app serving 10 million requests and 1 TB of data a month, Cloudflare Workers comes to $5.12 by our arithmetic, Vercel to $80 and Netlify to $155: Cloudflare does not charge for data transfer, and Netlify bills it in credits. Vercel leads on compliance documents, with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and a HIPAA BAA on its self-serve Pro plan, and it maintains Next.js. Netlify charges no seats on Pro, and its free plan may be used commercially.
The three bill on different models, so the scenario figures rest on stated assumptions. The scores measure what the public pages commit to, not framework features, build tooling or how a platform feels to use, and we did not sign up for any of the three.
At a glance
| Vercel | Netlify | Cloudflare Workers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | Next.js-first hosting, compliance on Pro | Deploys, previews, functions and forms in one credit balance | Requests and CPU time, no data transfer charge |
| Billing units | Developer seats, then metered usage after a $20 credit | Credits (bandwidth, requests, compute, deploys) | Requests that run code and CPU time |
| Free option | Hobby, personal and non-commercial use | 300 credits/mo, commercial use allowed | 100,000 requests/day |
| 3 developers, 10M requests, 1 TB/mo | $80, computed | $155, computed | $5.12, computed |
| Data transfer | 1 TB in Pro's included Flat Rate CDN tier | 20 credits per GB | Not charged |
| Spend cap | Can pause projects at a budget | Stops at your credits unless auto recharge is on | Budget alerts only |
| SAML SSO | $300/mo add-on | Enterprise | Dashboard SSO free on all plans |
| HIPAA BAA | $350/mo add-on on Pro | Enterprise add-on | Not stated |
| Score (public pages) | 6.3 Good | 7.3 Good | 8.6 Excellent |
What the public pages show
Vercel sells Pro at $20 a month with one developer seat and a $20 usage credit; each additional developer is $20, viewers are free, and usage past the credit is billed per resource at regional "starting at" rates. Flat Rate CDN covers delivery in fixed tiers: 1 million requests and 1 TB are included, and $20 buys 10 million requests. Hobby is free for personal, non-commercial use. The pricing table marks SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 on every plan, and Pro can add a HIPAA BAA ($350) and SAML SSO ($300).
Netlify moved new accounts to credits in September 2025. Free gives 300 credits a month as a hard limit, Personal is $9 for 1,000, and Pro runs from $20 for 3,000 credits to $126 for 20,000, with unlimited members. Bandwidth (20 credits per GB), web requests (2 per 10,000), compute (10 per GB-hour) and production deploys (15 each) draw credits. The security page lists SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA, with audit reports, SSO and the HIPAA add-on for Enterprise.
Cloudflare Workers bills requests that run code and the CPU time they use. Workers Paid is $5 a month per account with 10 million requests and 30 million CPU milliseconds included; static asset requests are free and unlimited, and the pricing docs say there is no charge for data transfer. The free plan allows 100,000 requests a day. Dashboard SSO is free on all plans, and the Trust Hub lists SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001.
Strengths and things to know
Vercel. Strengths: zero-configuration Next.js from its maintainers, SOC 2, ISO 27001 and a HIPAA BAA on a self-serve plan, a spending stop that pauses projects, fixed-price CDN tiers, free viewer seats. Things to know: Hobby is non-commercial, each developer is a $20 seat, SAML SSO is a $300 add-on, audit logs are on Enterprise, and Pro keeps runtime logs 1 day.
Netlify. Strengths: no seat charges on Pro, a free plan you may use commercially, spending that stops by default, unmetered forms and deploy previews, audit logs on Pro. Things to know: bandwidth is the main cost at 20 credits per GB, one project over the limit pauses all projects, and SSO, SOC 2 reports and HIPAA are on Enterprise.
Cloudflare Workers. Strengths: the lowest price at our scenario, no data transfer charges, SSO and audit logs on every plan, a daily free allowance. Things to know: budget alerts do not pause usage, Next.js runs through an adapter (vinext, in beta, or OpenNext), the current trust pages do not mention a HIPAA BAA, and the pages do not say whether the free plan may be used commercially.
Pricing reality
The three bill on different models: Vercel by developer seat plus metered resources after a $20 usage credit, Netlify by credits that bandwidth, requests, compute and deploys draw down, and Cloudflare by requests that run code and the CPU time they use. So we state one scenario and show the arithmetic. Reference scenario: a team of 3 developers who deploy; one web app serving 10 million requests and 1 TB of data a month; 2 million of those requests run server code, using 10 CPU-hours and 100 GB-hours of memory in total; 60 production deploys a month.
| Service | Plan | Monthly cost | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Workers | Workers Paid | $5.12 | Computed: $5 plan; 2M requests that run code are inside the 10M included and 8M static asset requests are free; 36M CPU ms is 6M over the 30M included, at $0.02 per million |
| Vercel | Pro | $80 | Computed: $20 Pro (1 seat) + 2 seats × $20 + $20 Flat Rate CDN tier (10M requests, 50 TB); functions $3.54, inside the $20 credit |
| Netlify | Pro, 15,000 credits | $155 | Computed: 23,900 credits (20,000 bandwidth + 2,000 requests + 1,000 compute + 900 deploys) = $95 tier + 6 × $10 packs |
Vercel's function figure is 2 million invocations at $0.60 per million ($1.20), 10 CPU-hours at $0.128 ($1.28) and 100 GB-hours of memory at $0.0106 ($1.06), at the lowest "starting at" regional rates. On-demand delivery instead of Flat Rate CDN would be $20 for 10 million requests plus $150 for 1 TB at $0.15 per GB, so the flat tier is the lower figure.
Some assumptions are ones the pricing pages cannot settle. Vercel's docs do not say whether the $20 usage credit can pay for a Flat Rate CDN tier; we assume it cannot, and if it can, Vercel's total is $60. We assume Vercel's origin transfer and build minutes stay within the rest of the credit, and Cloudflare's builds within its 6,000 included minutes. For Netlify we count 1 TB as 1,000 GB; bandwidth is 20,000 of its 23,900 credits, so a site that moves less data costs far less there.
How we scored them
Every product in this category is scored on the same six indicators, read from the vendor's own pricing, security or docs pages, with fixed formulas. The overall score is the plain mean. Our methodology page explains how these scores work.
| Indicator | Vercel | Netlify | Cloudflare Workers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing clarity and spend control | 6.5 | 9 | 7.5 |
| Free tier | 6 | 9 | 8.5 |
| Price for 3 developers, 10M requests and 1 TB | 5.5 | 4 | 10 |
| Compliance documents | 10 | 8 | 8 |
| Team seats and SSO | 6.5 | 7 | 10 |
| Logs and audit trail | 3.2 | 6.6 | 7.6 |
| Overall | 6.3 | 7.3 | 8.6 |
Vercel loses most on logs (1 day of runtime logs on Pro, audit logs on Enterprise), then on the scenario price and on clarity, because a bill draws on seven usage meters at regional rates; its free tier score reflects the non-commercial rule. Netlify loses most on the scenario price, where bandwidth dominates, then on logs (no self-serve export) and on SSO and audit reports, which sit on Enterprise. Cloudflare loses on spend control, because its budget alerts do not stop usage, on 7-day runtime logs, and on the HIPAA BAA its current pages do not mention.
The rubric rewards what a buyer can confirm before signing up. It has no item for framework support, where Vercel maintains Next.js and the other two use adapters, or for built-in services such as Netlify Forms and Cloudflare's KV, D1 and R2. Hands-on runs will add that later.
Who should choose which
- Choose Vercel if you build with Next.js, want a hard spending stop, and need SOC 2, ISO 27001 and a HIPAA BAA without an enterprise contract. Look elsewhere if you want a commercial project on a free plan.
- Choose Netlify if several people deploy, traffic is modest, and you want no seat charges and spending that stops by default. Look elsewhere if your app moves terabytes of data a month.
- Choose Cloudflare Workers if traffic or data volume drives your bill, or you want SSO and audit logs on every plan. Look elsewhere if you need a hard spending cap or a HIPAA BAA.
Bottom line
From public pages alone, Cloudflare Workers costs the least by far for a traffic-heavy app and puts SSO and audit logs on every plan. Netlify suits small teams with modest traffic and no appetite for seat charges. Vercel's lower score reflects how this rubric counts seats, logs and metered usage; for a team building on Next.js that needs compliance documents on a self-serve plan, it is the most complete package here.
How we checked
We read the vendors' pricing, security or trust, and documentation pages on Oct 15, 2026, including Vercel's Flat Rate CDN and spend management docs, Netlify's credit-based plan docs and Cloudflare's Workers pricing, limits, billing and SSO docs. We did not sign up, deploy an app or send a request. Facts the pages did not state, such as whether any of the three asks for a card at sign-up or whether Cloudflare's free plan may be used commercially, are left out or marked as not stated rather than guessed. Every figure is on the vendors' pages as of that date or, where marked, computed from them.
