Head to head
Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.
Up to 4 tools, same rows for each: what it is, what it really costs, the trap, and how to wire it up. The URL carries your picks — send it to anyone.
DigitalOcean App PlatformGitHub PagesAWS Amplify Hosting
Quick read
- Free with no card: GitHub Pages.
| Field | DigitalOcean App Platformdigitalocean.com | GitHub Pagespages.github.com | AWS Amplify Hostingaws.amazon.com |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | DigitalOcean's Git-to-container PaaS built on their droplet infrastructure, with managed Postgres, autoscaling, cron jobs and a CDN for static components. Instances are always-on containers so there are no cold starts, and outbound transfer beyond the plan allowance is a flat $0.02 per GiB. | Serves a static site directly from a repository branch or a GitHub Actions build, with free HTTPS on custom domains. Limits are soft rather than metered: a 1 GB published site, 100 GB of bandwidth a month and 10 builds an hour. No server-side code at all. | AWS's managed CI/CD plus CloudFront hosting for React, Vite and Next.js, with SSR on Lambda and first-party wiring into Cognito, AppSync, DynamoDB and S3. Pricing is pure pay-per-unit — $0.15 per GB served, $0.01 per build minute, $0.30 per million SSR requests. |
| Category | Hosting, deploy & edge | Hosting, deploy & edge | Hosting, deploy & edge |
| Cost tier | mixed | free | mixed |
| Pricing | 3 static-site apps free with 1 GiB transfer each. Cheapest container $5/mo (shared 1 vCPU, 512 MiB, 50 GiB transfer); $10/mo gives 1 GiB RAM and 100 GiB; $50/mo gives 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 250 GiB. Overage $0.02/GiB. | Free on public repos with GitHub Free; private repos require Pro ($4/mo), Team or Enterprise. Soft limits: 1 GB published site, 100 GB bandwidth per month, 10 builds per hour (waived when using a custom Actions workflow). | Free tier: 1,000 build minutes, 5 GB stored, 15 GB served, 500k SSR requests, 100 GB-hours SSR compute per month. Then $0.01 per standard build minute, $0.023/GB stored, $0.15/GB served, $0.30 per 1M SSR requests, $0.20 per SSR GB-hour. |
| Why builders pick it | Boring in the best way: flat monthly instance prices, one of the cheapest bandwidth overage rates on the market, and Spaces, managed Postgres and droplets one click away when you outgrow it. | The zero-thought way to publish a Vite build, docs site or portfolio — one Actions workflow and it is live forever with no billing relationship to worry about and no credit card on file. | If the rest of your stack already lives in AWS, Amplify keeps auth, data and hosting inside one IAM boundary with per-branch environments. The free tier covers a low-traffic first year comfortably. |
| Watch out for | The free static tier includes only 1 GiB of transfer per app before you must add a paid component. Transfer pools across the account, so one heavy app can consume another's allowance. Set a billing alert; there is no hard cap. | GitHub's terms forbid running a business, e-commerce or SaaS on Pages. Billing risk is genuinely zero, but so are redirects, SSR, server env vars and access control. Exceeding 100 GB earns a polite email, not an invoice. | AWS has no hard spend cap — Budgets only send alerts. Amplify tutorial defaults have produced four-figure bills, including a documented $1,100 charge from an undisclosed OpenSearch instance (refunded). Create an AWS Budget with an SNS or Lambda action that disables the offending resources. |
| How to wire it up | doctl apps create --spec .do/app.yaml | npx gh-pages -d dist | npm create amplify@latest && npx ampx sandbox |
| Editor's pick | No | No | No |
Which one did you ship?
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# Tool comparison — DigitalOcean App Platform vs GitHub Pages vs AWS Amplify Hosting Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects. Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code. ## DigitalOcean App Platform (digitalocean-app-platform) - URL: https://www.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform - Category: Hosting, deploy & edge - Cost: mixed — 3 static-site apps free with 1 GiB transfer each. Cheapest container $5/mo (shared 1 vCPU, 512 MiB, 50 GiB transfer); $10/mo gives 1 GiB RAM and 100 GiB; $50/mo gives 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 250 GiB. Overage $0.02/GiB. - What it is: DigitalOcean's Git-to-container PaaS built on their droplet infrastructure, with managed Postgres, autoscaling, cron jobs and a CDN for static components. Instances are always-on containers so there are no cold starts, and outbound transfer beyond the plan allowance is a flat $0.02 per GiB. - Why builders pick it: Boring in the best way: flat monthly instance prices, one of the cheapest bandwidth overage rates on the market, and Spaces, managed Postgres and droplets one click away when you outgrow it. - Trap: The free static tier includes only 1 GiB of transfer per app before you must add a paid component. Transfer pools across the account, so one heavy app can consume another's allowance. Set a billing alert; there is no hard cap. - Wiring: doctl apps create --spec .do/app.yaml - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/digitalocean-app-platform ## GitHub Pages (github-pages) - URL: https://pages.github.com - Category: Hosting, deploy & edge - Cost: free — Free on public repos with GitHub Free; private repos require Pro ($4/mo), Team or Enterprise. Soft limits: 1 GB published site, 100 GB bandwidth per month, 10 builds per hour (waived when using a custom Actions workflow). - What it is: Serves a static site directly from a repository branch or a GitHub Actions build, with free HTTPS on custom domains. Limits are soft rather than metered: a 1 GB published site, 100 GB of bandwidth a month and 10 builds an hour. No server-side code at all. - Why builders pick it: The zero-thought way to publish a Vite build, docs site or portfolio — one Actions workflow and it is live forever with no billing relationship to worry about and no credit card on file. - Trap: GitHub's terms forbid running a business, e-commerce or SaaS on Pages. Billing risk is genuinely zero, but so are redirects, SSR, server env vars and access control. Exceeding 100 GB earns a polite email, not an invoice. - Wiring: npx gh-pages -d dist - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/github-pages ## AWS Amplify Hosting (aws-amplify-hosting) - URL: https://aws.amazon.com/amplify/ - Category: Hosting, deploy & edge - Cost: mixed — Free tier: 1,000 build minutes, 5 GB stored, 15 GB served, 500k SSR requests, 100 GB-hours SSR compute per month. Then $0.01 per standard build minute, $0.023/GB stored, $0.15/GB served, $0.30 per 1M SSR requests, $0.20 per SSR GB-hour. - What it is: AWS's managed CI/CD plus CloudFront hosting for React, Vite and Next.js, with SSR on Lambda and first-party wiring into Cognito, AppSync, DynamoDB and S3. Pricing is pure pay-per-unit — $0.15 per GB served, $0.01 per build minute, $0.30 per million SSR requests. - Why builders pick it: If the rest of your stack already lives in AWS, Amplify keeps auth, data and hosting inside one IAM boundary with per-branch environments. The free tier covers a low-traffic first year comfortably. - Trap: AWS has no hard spend cap — Budgets only send alerts. Amplify tutorial defaults have produced four-figure bills, including a documented $1,100 charge from an undisclosed OpenSearch instance (refunded). Create an AWS Budget with an SNS or Lambda action that disables the offending resources. - Wiring: npm create amplify@latest && npx ampx sandbox - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/aws-amplify-hosting ## Quick read - Free with no card: GitHub Pages. ## Rules 1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is. 2. Read the full dossier before integrating. 3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.
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