Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.

The grid says what these tools are. This says what builders did about it — one decision per person, changeable whenever you change your mind.

# Tool comparison — Render 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.

## Render (render)
- URL: https://render.com
- Category: Hosting, deploy & edge
- Cost: mixed — Free static sites and 750 free instance-hours/mo (512 MB, 0.1 CPU, spins down). Starter web service $7/mo. Hobby workspace $0 + compute, 5 GB bandwidth then $0.15/GB. Pro $25/mo + compute with 25 GB. Basic Postgres $6/mo.
- What it is: Heroku-style PaaS covering static sites, web services, cron jobs, background workers, Postgres and key-value stores, all deployed from Git or a Blueprint YAML. The free web service tier gives 750 instance-hours a month but spins down after 15 minutes idle.
- Why builders pick it: Predictable flat instance pricing instead of per-request arithmetic: free static hosting for the Vite build plus a $7 box for the API. render.yaml defines the whole stack in one file.
- Trap: Free services take roughly a minute to cold-start after 15 minutes idle — unusable for anything a human waits on. Free Postgres is deleted 30 days after creation. Bandwidth allowance is stingy (5 GB on Hobby) and overage is $0.15/GB, same as Vercel.
- Wiring: Commit render.yaml, then New > Blueprint in the dashboard
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/render

## 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.

Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=render,github-pages,aws-amplify-hosting