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.
VercelGitHub PagesAWS Amplify Hosting
Quick read
- Free with no card: GitHub Pages.
| Field | Vercelvercel.com | GitHub Pagespages.github.com | AWS Amplify Hostingaws.amazon.com |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The company behind Next.js, turning a Git push into builds, a global CDN and Fluid compute functions. Hobby includes 100 GB transfer, 1M invocations and 4 Active CPU hours. Pro is $20 per seat with a $20 usage credit, 1 TB transfer and per-region compute rates. | 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 | Hobby free: 100 GB fast data transfer, 1M invocations, 4 CPU-hours, 1M edge requests. Pro $20/user/mo with $20 credit, 1 TB transfer then ~$0.15/GB, edge requests $2/1M. Fluid compute Active CPU $0.128/hr (iad1) + $0.0106/GB-hr memory. | 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 | Zero-config Next.js: push to GitHub and get preview URLs, ISR, image optimization and analytics with no infra thinking. App Router features land here first and work without fighting adapters. | 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 | Hobby forbids commercial use — wire up Stripe and you are out of terms. Pro now ships a default $200 on-demand budget with hard caps that pause projects; set it to your real ceiling on day one. Transfer overage near $0.15/GB is ~15x Cloudflare or Bunny. | 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 | npm i -g vercel && vercel --prod | npx gh-pages -d dist | npm create amplify@latest && npx ampx sandbox |
| Editor's pick | No | No | No |
Which one did you ship?
The grid says what these tools are. This says what builders did about it — one decision per person, changeable whenever you change your mind.
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# Tool comparison — Vercel 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. ## Vercel (vercel) - URL: https://vercel.com - Category: Hosting, deploy & edge - Cost: mixed — Hobby free: 100 GB fast data transfer, 1M invocations, 4 CPU-hours, 1M edge requests. Pro $20/user/mo with $20 credit, 1 TB transfer then ~$0.15/GB, edge requests $2/1M. Fluid compute Active CPU $0.128/hr (iad1) + $0.0106/GB-hr memory. - What it is: The company behind Next.js, turning a Git push into builds, a global CDN and Fluid compute functions. Hobby includes 100 GB transfer, 1M invocations and 4 Active CPU hours. Pro is $20 per seat with a $20 usage credit, 1 TB transfer and per-region compute rates. - Why builders pick it: Zero-config Next.js: push to GitHub and get preview URLs, ISR, image optimization and analytics with no infra thinking. App Router features land here first and work without fighting adapters. - Trap: Hobby forbids commercial use — wire up Stripe and you are out of terms. Pro now ships a default $200 on-demand budget with hard caps that pause projects; set it to your real ceiling on day one. Transfer overage near $0.15/GB is ~15x Cloudflare or Bunny. - Wiring: npm i -g vercel && vercel --prod - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/vercel ## 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=vercel,github-pages,aws-amplify-hosting