Where to Host Your AI-Built App in 2026: From One-Click to Full Control

You just built a full-stack app in record time with Claude Code, Cursor, or Lovable. It works beautifully on localhost. Now comes the question every vibe-coder eventually faces: where do I actually put this thing?

The hosting landscape in 2026 is crowded, and choosing wrong can mean surprise bills, painful migrations, or your app going dark at the worst possible time. This guide breaks down the major platforms from simplest to most complex — with real pricing, honest strengths, and clear warnings about what each one won't do well.

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The Quick Reference

Before we dive deep, here's the landscape at a glance:

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Tier 1: Deploy and Forget (Frontend-First Platforms)

🟢 Netlify — The Gateway Drug to Hosting

What it is: The platform that made "git push to deploy" mainstream. Connect your GitHub repo, push code, get a live URL. Period.

Pricing:

• Free: 100GB bandwidth, 300 build credits/month, serverless functions, deploy previews
• Personal: \$9/month (solo developers)
• Pro: \$19/user/month — 1TB bandwidth, 25K build minutes, team collaboration
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Perfect for:

• Static sites, portfolios, documentation, landing pages
• Jamstack apps (Gatsby, Hugo, Eleventy, Astro)
• Quick MVP launches from AI-generated code
• Developers who never want to think about servers

Not suitable for:

• Backend-heavy applications (APIs, databases, workers)
• Apps with high compute needs (AI inference, image processing)
• Teams needing fine-grained server control
• Long-running processes or WebSocket connections

The LatAm angle: The free tier is genuinely useful — you can host multiple projects without a credit card. For developers building portfolios or landing pages to showcase their work, it's hard to beat.

⚠️ Watch out: Sites pause when you exceed free limits. All projects on your account get paused, not just the one that went over. The credit-based billing introduced recently can be confusing if you're used to the old flat model.

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🟢 Cloudflare Pages — The Hidden Champion

What it is: Static hosting on Cloudflare's massive global network (300+ edge locations), with Workers for serverless compute. Possibly the best free tier in the industry.

Pricing:

• Free: Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited static requests, 500 builds/month, 100K Workers requests/day
• Pro: \$25/month — 5K builds, 250 custom domains
• Workers Paid: \$5/month for 10M requests + compute time

Perfect for:

• High-traffic static sites where bandwidth costs would kill you elsewhere
• Global apps that need extreme low-latency everywhere
• APIs via Cloudflare Workers (zero cold starts)
• Developers who care about performance and hate egress fees

Not suitable for:

• Traditional server-side apps (no containers, no VMs)
• Apps requiring persistent connections or long-running processes
• Teams needing managed databases (D1 is still maturing)
• Anything that needs more than serverless/edge architecture

The LatAm angle: With unlimited free bandwidth and 300+ edge locations including presence in Latin America, this is exceptional value. If your users are spread across the region, pages load fast from São Paulo, Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Bogotá. Zero egress fees is a massive cost advantage.

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🟢 Vercel — The Next.js Kingdom

What it is: Created by the makers of Next.js, Vercel is the default deployment platform for React and Next.js apps. The developer experience is polished to perfection.

Pricing:

• Hobby: Free (personal, non-commercial only) — 100GB bandwidth, limited compute
• Pro: \$20/user/month — \$20 included credits, 1TB bandwidth, team features
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Perfect for:

• Next.js applications (first-class support, zero config)
• React/Vue/Svelte frontends that need SSR or ISR
• Teams already invested in the Next.js ecosystem
• Serverless functions for lightweight backend logic

Not suitable for:

• Non-Next.js backends or full-stack apps with heavy server needs
• AI workloads (streaming responses burn through compute credits fast)
• Budget-conscious teams at scale (\$20/user adds up quickly)
• Apps that need databases, workers, or cron jobs (bolt-on, not native)

The LatAm angle: The free Hobby plan is personal-use only — commercial use violates their terms. For freelancers deploying client work, you're immediately on the \$20/user Pro plan. At scale, Vercel's usage-based pricing has caused sticker shock for many teams. Monitor your usage dashboard closely.

⚠️ Watch out: AI-powered apps with streaming responses are surprisingly expensive on Vercel. A chatbot streaming a 45-second response means the serverless function runs for 45 seconds, costing 45x more than a quick API call. Developers have reported burning through Pro credits in days with AI apps.

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Tier 2: Full-Stack Platforms (The New PaaS)

🔵 Railway — The Developer's Darling

What it is: The modern Heroku replacement that developers genuinely enjoy using. Push code, get a URL, add databases with one click. Beautiful UI, transparent pricing.

Pricing:

• Trial: \$5 one-time credit (30 days)
• Hobby: \$5/month (includes \$5 usage credit) — 8GB RAM, 8 vCPU per service
• Pro: \$20/month (includes \$20 usage credit) — 32GB RAM, 32 vCPU per service
• Enterprise: Custom
• Usage: CPU at ~\$0.000463/min/vCPU, RAM at ~\$0.000231/min/GB

Perfect for:

• Full-stack apps with databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis — one click)
• Backend APIs and services in any language
• Quick prototyping (deploy anything in under 2 minutes)
• Indie hackers and small teams who want speed without complexity

Not suitable for:

• Static-only sites (overkill, use Netlify/Cloudflare)
• Enterprise apps needing compliance, SLAs, or multi-region
• Teams needing granular infrastructure control
• Budget zero — there's no permanent free tier

The LatAm angle: The usage-based model is ideal for apps with variable traffic. Most hobby projects stay well under \$5/month in actual resources, making the Hobby plan effectively \$5 flat for small apps. The visual canvas for connecting services is intuitive even for developers who aren't infrastructure experts.

⚠️ Watch out: No permanent free tier — the trial is one-time only. When credits deplete, your apps stop. No warning pause, they just go down. Set up monitoring from day one.

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🔵 Render — The Heroku Successor

What it is: If you liked Heroku's simplicity but not its prices, Render is where you probably ended up. Predictable plan-based pricing, real free tier for static sites, and native support for workers and cron jobs.

Pricing:

• Free: Static sites (100GB bandwidth), web services (with sleep after inactivity), 1GB PostgreSQL (expires after 30 days)
• Starter: \$7/month — 512MB RAM, 0.5 CPU (shared)
• Standard: \$25/month — 2GB RAM, 1 CPU
• Pro: \$80/month — 4GB RAM, 2 CPUs
• Professional plan: \$19/user/month for team features

Perfect for:

• Full-stack apps needing predictable monthly costs
• Background workers, cron jobs, and queue processing
• Teams replacing Heroku who want similar workflows
• Apps that need to stay online 24/7 without credit monitoring

Not suitable for:

• Apps needing MongoDB out-of-the-box (PostgreSQL and Redis only natively)
• Global/multi-region deployments (limited region options)
• Budget-zero backends (free web services sleep after inactivity)
• Real-time apps needing WebSocket support at scale

The LatAm angle: Render's plan-based pricing makes budgeting easy — you know exactly what you'll pay each month. For freelancers billing clients, this predictability is gold. The free tier for static sites is permanent and doesn't require a credit card.

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🔵 Fly.io — Edge Containers Everywhere

What it is: Run your app close to your users with actual VMs (not just serverless functions) deployed globally. Think "Docker containers at the edge."

Pricing:

• Free Trial: 2 hours machine runtime or 7 days (whichever first)
• Pay-as-you-go: Billed per second for compute, storage, bandwidth
• Shared CPU 1x (256MB): ~\$1.94/month
• Shared CPU 1x (1GB): ~\$5.70/month
• Dedicated IPv4: \$2/month per app
• Managed Postgres: Starting at \$38/month

Perfect for:

• Apps that need low latency in multiple regions simultaneously
• Global APIs where every millisecond matters
• Full-stack apps that outgrew simpler PaaS platforms
• Developers comfortable with Docker and CLI workflows

Not suitable for:

• Beginners (steeper learning curve than Railway/Render)
• Teams that want predictable monthly bills (usage-based = surprises)
• Simple single-region apps (overly complex for basic needs)
• Projects with zero budget (no meaningful free tier for new users)

The LatAm angle: Fly.io shines if your users are spread across the Americas. You can deploy replicas in São Paulo, Santiago, and other regions so your app responds in milliseconds locally. But this multi-region power comes with multi-region bills — start with one or two regions and expand strategically.

⚠️ Watch out: Volumes keep billing even when your machines are stopped. IPv4 addresses cost \$2/month each. No billing alerts yet — check your dashboard regularly or face surprise charges.

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Tier 3: More Control, More Responsibility

🟠 DigitalOcean — The Middle Ground

What it is: A developer-friendly cloud provider that sits between simple PaaS and full cloud complexity. Offers both managed App Platform (PaaS) and raw Droplets (VPS).

Pricing:

• App Platform: Free for static sites; Paid starts at ~\$5/month per container
• Droplets (VPS): From \$4/month (1 vCPU, 512MB RAM) to \$6/month (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM)
• Managed Databases: From \$15/month
• Managed Kubernetes: From \$12/month per node
• Development databases: \$7/month

Perfect for:

• Teams that want PaaS convenience with VPS escape hatch
• Developers who want to learn infrastructure without AWS complexity
• Running your own tools (Coolify, n8n, databases) on cheap VPS
• Budget-conscious production apps that need dedicated resources

Not suitable for:

• Zero-configuration deployments (App Platform is simpler but still more work than Railway)
• Enterprise compliance requirements (HIPAA, FedRAMP, etc.)
• Global edge deployments (limited regions compared to cloud giants)
• Teams that never want to SSH into a server

The LatAm angle: DigitalOcean has a data center in São Paulo (NYC and SFO are the closest alternatives for other LatAm countries). Their \$4-6/month Droplets are excellent for self-hosting your own PaaS with tools like Coolify — giving you Vercel-like features on your own infrastructure.

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Tier 4: The Cloud Giants (Maximum Power, Maximum Complexity)

🔴 AWS / Google Cloud / Azure

What they are: The full cloud platforms with hundreds of services each. Virtually unlimited scaling, global infrastructure, and enterprise-grade everything. Also: the most complex pricing models in existence.

Entry Points for App Developers:

• AWS Lightsail: \$3.50/month (1 vCPU, 512MB) — simplified AWS
• AWS Amplify: Free tier generous for frontend apps, usage-based after
• Google Cloud Run: 2M free requests/month, then usage-based
• Azure App Service: Free tier available for small apps

Free Tiers (new accounts):

• AWS: 12 months free (t2.micro EC2, S3, RDS, etc.) + always-free services
• GCP: \$300 credit for 90 days + always-free tier
• Azure: \$200 credit for 30 days + 12 months of popular services free

Perfect for:

• Apps that need to scale to millions of users
• Enterprise requirements (compliance, SLAs, dedicated support)
• AI/ML workloads (GPU instances, managed AI services)
• Complex architectures (microservices, event-driven, data pipelines)

Not suitable for:

• Quick prototypes (setup overhead is real)
• Solo developers without cloud experience (the learning curve is steep)
• Budget-conscious projects without close cost monitoring
• Apps that "just need hosting" — you'll be paying for infrastructure you don't use

The LatAm angle: AWS has the best LatAm presence with regions in São Paulo, and planned or recent expansions. GCP has a São Paulo region. Azure has Brazil South. For compliance-sensitive applications (banking, healthcare, government), these are often the only option. But beware: the free tier ends, and the bill arrives. Set billing alerts from day one — stories of \$10K+ surprise AWS bills are not urban legends.

⚠️ Serious warning: The cloud giants' pricing is notoriously opaque. Data egress (outbound traffic) alone can cost \$0.09-0.12/GB on AWS. If your AI app generates lots of responses, bandwidth costs add up fast. Cloudflare's zero-egress model exists specifically because developers got burned by this.

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The Decision Framework

Here's how to think about choosing:

"I just vibe-coded a frontend and want it live in 60 seconds" → Netlify or Cloudflare Pages (free, instant)

"I built a Next.js app with AI-assisted coding" → Vercel if budget allows, Cloudflare Pages via OpenNext if cost-sensitive

"I need a backend + database for my full-stack app" → Railway for speed, Render for predictability

"My app needs to be fast everywhere, globally" → Fly.io for containers, Cloudflare Workers for serverless

"I want to learn infrastructure and keep costs minimal" → DigitalOcean Droplet + Coolify (\$4-6/month for everything)

"I'm building for enterprise scale with compliance needs" → AWS, GCP, or Azure (get a cloud architect involved)

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The Budget Reality Check

Here's what a typical AI-built full-stack app (React frontend + API backend + PostgreSQL database) actually costs monthly on each platform:

Low = under 1K daily users. Medium = 1K-10K. High = 10K+. Estimates vary wildly by app architecture and usage patterns.

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Final Thoughts

The most expensive hosting decision in 2026 isn't the monthly bill — it's the migration cost when you outgrow your platform. A few principles that save pain:

Start simple, migrate up. Deploy your MVP on Railway or Render. Don't overthink it. You can always move later when you actually know your traffic patterns.

Separate your concerns. Frontend on Vercel/Cloudflare, backend on Railway/Render, database on a managed service. This gives you flexibility to swap any piece independently.

Set billing alerts everywhere. Every platform mentioned here has surprised someone with a bill. Even the "free" ones can pause your production site without warning if you exceed limits.

The best platform is the one that lets you ship. In the age of AI-assisted development, the bottleneck isn't building anymore — it's deploying, iterating, and getting feedback. Choose the platform that gets out of your way.

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Pricing data current as of February 2026. Always verify on each platform's official pricing page before committing — these change frequently.

What platform are you deploying your AI-built apps on? Share your experience in the comments — especially cost surprises (good and bad). 👇