Updated September 22, 2026 · 13 min read
Vercel vs Cloudflare, plus Netlify and GitHub Pages, compared for static sites: free limits, commercial-use rules, agency costs and a verdict per case.
Short answer: For a static site, Cloudflare Pages is the cheapest at scale, with unlimited bandwidth on its free plan. Vercel has the best developer workflow, but its free Hobby plan bans commercial use and Pro costs $20 per deploying seat. Netlify offers the easiest start without Git through Netlify Drop. GitHub Pages suits open-source projects, not online businesses (official docs, checked September 2026).
In this guide
- Vercel vs Cloudflare Pages vs Netlify vs GitHub Pages at a glance
- Vercel: best developer workflow, stricter than Cloudflare on free use
- Cloudflare Pages: unlimited bandwidth, cheaper than Vercel at scale
- Netlify: easiest start without Git, credits to watch
- GitHub Pages: free for projects, not for online businesses
- Vercel vs Cloudflare on speed: what we can honestly say
- Agency cost: Vercel vs Cloudflare vs Netlify for 10 client sites
- Vercel vs Cloudflare vs Netlify: which should you pick?
- Where sofast fits
- Frequently asked questions
Most “Vercel vs Cloudflare” comparisons are written for Next.js developers. This guide asks a simpler question: which host is best for a static website made of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images? It compares Vercel, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify and GitHub Pages with the same criteria for each. It is written for small agencies choosing a default host for client sites. It also serves freelancers with a finished HTML site and no Git experience. Only comparing two? Read our Vercel vs Netlify comparison.
In plain terms: A static site is a folder of files that the server sends “as-is” to the browser (MDN). There is no database or server code. Not sure which kind you have? See static vs dynamic websites explained.
Vercel vs Cloudflare Pages vs Netlify vs GitHub Pages at a glance
The table uses the same rows for every platform. “Commercial use” means a site that sells, advertises, or was built for a paying client. Figures come from each platform’s official docs and pricing pages (checked September 2026), listed in the sources at the end.
| Vercel | Cloudflare Pages | Netlify | GitHub Pages | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Hobby, $0 | Free, $0 | Free, $0 (300 credits/month, hard limit) | Free with public repositories |
| Commercial use on free | No: Pro or Enterprise required | No restriction stated on the Pages product page | No restriction stated on the pricing page | Not for online businesses, e-commerce or SaaS |
| Bandwidth on free | 100 GB Fast Data Transfer/month | Unlimited | Paid in credits: 20 credits per GB | Soft limit of 100 GB/month |
| What happens at the limit | Feature blocked until 30 days pass; no surprise bill | No bandwidth limit; 500 builds/month cap | All sites paused, “Site not available” page until next cycle | GitHub may stop serving the site or email you |
| Paid entry price and seats | Pro $20/month incl. 1 deploying seat; extra deploying seats $20 each | Unlimited seats on all plans; Workers Paid from $5/month per account | Personal $9/month; Pro from $20/month, unlimited members | Private repos need a paid GitHub plan |
| Custom domains on free | Yes, 50 per project | Yes, 100 per project | Yes, with SSL | Yes, with HTTPS |
| Drag-and-drop without Git | Vercel Drop, account required, each drop = new project | Dashboard upload, max 1,000 files, 25 MiB per file | Netlify Drop, no account needed, temporary until claimed | Browser upload to a repository, 100 files at a time |
| Best for | Next.js apps, developer teams | High-traffic sites, low cost | Quick no-Git start, forms | Open-source docs, personal projects |
Three rows decide most cases. Commercial use rules out Vercel Hobby for client work and GitHub Pages for online stores. The limit row separates Vercel, which blocks the exhausted feature, from Netlify, which pauses every site on a Free account. Bandwidth is where Cloudflare Pages stands apart: unlimited on every plan.
Vercel: best developer workflow, stricter than Cloudflare on free use
Vercel is the company behind the Next.js framework, and its platform is built around a Git workflow. Every push to a repository creates a deployment with its own preview URL. Static sites work just as well. Vercel serves files through its CDN (content delivery network). Vercel’s regions docs list 126 points of presence and 19 compute regions (checked September 2026).
In plain terms: A CDN is a network of servers around the world that keeps copies of your files close to your visitors.
Strengths. Vercel’s Hobby plan costs $0 and includes 100 GB of Fast Data Transfer per month (Vercel Hobby docs, checked September 2026). Custom domains are allowed on Hobby, up to 50 per project. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates from Let’s Encrypt are automatic. Previews and rollbacks are polished. Since June 12, 2026, Vercel Drop lets you drag a file, folder or .zip onto vercel.com/drop without Git.
Catches. Hobby is for non-commercial personal use only. Vercel’s fair-use guidelines count a site as commercial if anyone is paid to create or host it. Taking payments or showing ads also counts. That excludes client work. Vercel Drop requires an account, and each drop creates a new project that later drops cannot update. When Hobby limits are exceeded, you usually wait 30 days to use the feature again, without a surprise bill.
Paid plan. Vercel Pro costs $20 per month and includes 1 deploying seat and $20 of usage credit. Each extra deploying seat costs $20 per month, and viewer seats are free (Vercel Pro plan docs, checked September 2026). Pro includes 1 TB of transfer per month. Our complete guide to Vercel pricing breaks down every line, and is Vercel free for commercial use? covers the Hobby rules.
Who Vercel is for. Development teams shipping Next.js or React apps who value preview URLs and Git. For a personal static site that earns nothing, Hobby is generous. For agency work, budget for Vercel Pro from day one.
Cloudflare Pages: unlimited bandwidth, cheaper than Vercel at scale
Cloudflare Pages is Cloudflare’s hosting product for static and full-stack sites. It runs on Cloudflare’s network, which Cloudflare says spans 348 cities (cloudflare.com/network, checked September 2026). Its pricing message is blunt: “All plans come with unlimited sites, seats, requests, and bandwidth.” In any “Cloudflare vs Vercel” debate about static sites, that sentence is Cloudflare’s strongest argument.
Strengths. The Cloudflare Pages Free plan includes 500 builds per month and 100 custom domains per project (Cloudflare Pages limits, checked September 2026). Each site can hold 20,000 files of up to 25 MiB each. There is no seat charge, so a whole team can share one account. For a static site with unpredictable traffic, this is the lowest-risk bill of the four.
Catches. The Cloudflare dashboard is built for developers. Drag-and-drop exists under Workers & Pages > Create, but a dashboard upload is capped at 1,000 files and 25 MiB per file. The Wrangler command-line tool raises that to 20,000 files. A dashboard upload cannot compile a functions folder.
Who Cloudflare Pages is for. High-traffic sites, teams that dislike per-seat pricing, and agencies hosting many small sites. Someone on the team must be comfortable in a technical dashboard. Read what Cloudflare Pages is and how it works for a walkthrough.
The Cloudflare Pages to Workers shift
In April 2025, Cloudflare announced that Pages would stay supported. It added that “all of our investment, optimizations, and feature work will be dedicated to improving Workers.” The Pages documentation now says: “Start new projects with Workers” (updated August 25, 2026).
For a static site, this changes little today. Cloudflare Pages is still supported, and no official page calls it deprecated. On Workers, “Requests to static assets are free and unlimited,” per the Workers pricing docs (checked September 2026). Workers Paid starts at $5 per month per account, which matters only if you run code. Existing Pages sites can stay put; new projects should start on Workers.
In plain terms: Cloudflare Workers is Cloudflare’s platform for running code at the edge. It can also serve a plain folder of static files, like Pages does.
Netlify: easiest start without Git, credits to watch
Netlify popularized Git-based static hosting and still offers the gentlest entry for non-developers. Every account created since September 4, 2025 uses credit-based pricing. Free gives 300 credits per month as a hard limit. Personal costs $9 per month for 1,000 credits. Pro starts at $20 per month for 3,000 credits (Netlify credit-based pricing docs, checked September 2026).
In plain terms: A credit is Netlify’s unit of usage. Deploys, bandwidth, requests and compute all draw from one monthly balance.
Strengths. Netlify Drop, at app.netlify.com/drop, needs no account: drag a folder and get a live URL. A drop made without signing in is protected by a temporary password until you claim it. Custom domains and automatic Let’s Encrypt SSL are included on Free. Netlify Forms is free and unlimited on all credit-based plans, which helps contact-page sites. Since April 14, 2026, Netlify Pro includes unlimited members at a flat price.
Catches. Credits pay for everything. A production deploy costs 15 credits, and each GB of bandwidth costs 20 credits (Netlify docs, checked September 2026). On Free, 20 production deploys use all 300 credits, leaving nothing for traffic. When credits run out, Netlify pauses “all of your web projects” and visitors see a “Site not available” page until the next cycle. Unclaimed drops are temporary and expire unless you claim them with an account.
Who Netlify is for. Non-developers who want a fast first upload, and teams who need forms without writing code. Watch the credit meter if you redeploy often. See Netlify pricing and how credits work for worked examples, or how sofast compares with Netlify Drop if drag-and-drop is your main need.
GitHub Pages: free for projects, not for online businesses
GitHub Pages publishes a site straight from a GitHub repository. It is free with public repositories on GitHub Free. Private repositories need a paid GitHub plan, and the published site is public on the internet either way (GitHub docs, checked September 2026).
Strengths. A published site can reach 1 GB. Bandwidth has a soft limit of 100 GB per month, and builds a soft limit of 10 per hour. Custom domains work, with Let’s Encrypt HTTPS through an “Enforce HTTPS” checkbox. You can even avoid Git commands. GitHub lets you drag files into a repository in the browser, up to 100 files at a time.
Catches. GitHub Pages is not allowed “to run your online business, e-commerce site,” or any site primarily directed at commercial transactions. The same ban covers SaaS (software as a service). Over the soft limits, GitHub may stop serving the site or email you suggestions. The HTTPS option can take up to 24 hours to appear.
Who GitHub Pages is for. Open-source projects, documentation, and personal portfolios. It is a weak default for client sites that sell anything. Our step-by-step GitHub Pages hosting guide covers setup. The “vercel vs github pages” choice mostly comes down to commercial use.
Vercel vs Cloudflare on speed: what we can honestly say
Search results for “Vercel vs Cloudflare” often quote speed tests, mostly on Next.js apps with server rendering. We did not run a benchmark, and we will not quote TTFB (time to first byte) numbers we cannot source. Network size is the one hard figure. Cloudflare says its network spans 348 cities; Vercel’s docs list 126 points of presence (both checked September 2026). We found no comparable official count for Netlify or GitHub Pages.
More locations can shorten the distance to far-away visitors, but that does not guarantee a faster page. For a static site, the page is a file cached close to the visitor. Your own files are usually the biggest speed factor: image weight, fonts and scripts. If speed matters in your market, deploy the same folder to two hosts and test from your visitors’ regions.
Agency cost: Vercel vs Cloudflare vs Netlify for 10 client sites
Imagine a studio of 3 people hosting 10 static client sites. Each site is redeployed about 4 times a month and serves about 5 GB of traffic. These are assumptions for illustration, not measurements. Prices are list prices from official pages (checked September 2026), before taxes. Because the studio is paid to build and host the sites, every site counts as commercial.
| Platform | Plan needed | Monthly base (estimate) | What pushes the bill up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Pro (Hobby bans client work) | $60: $20 fee + 2 extra deploying seats at $20 | More deploying seats; usage beyond the $20 credit |
| Netlify | Pro | From $20 flat, unlimited members | Credits: 40 deploys = 600, 50 GB = 1,000, about 1,600 of 3,000 before request charges |
| Cloudflare Pages | Free | $0 | Workers Paid at $5/month per account, only if you run code |
| GitHub Pages | Free (public repositories) | $0 | Not allowed for sites primarily directed at commercial transactions |
Over a year, the base comes to about $720 on Vercel, from $240 on Netlify, and $0 to $60 on Cloudflare. Vercel drops to $240 per year if only one person deploys and the others use free viewer seats. Vercel Pro includes 1 TB of transfer, so 50 GB fits easily. Netlify is the least predictable: requests cost 2 credits per 10,000, and a busy launch month adds up.
GitHub Pages looks free, but it is a poor default for an agency. A client’s online store falls under its prohibition, and brochure sites sit in a grey zone. For most studios, the real choice is Cloudflare for cost, against Vercel or Netlify for workflow and team features.
Vercel vs Cloudflare vs Netlify: which should you pick?
Answer these questions in order. Stop at the first “yes” that gives you a host.
- Is the site non-commercial and already on GitHub, like an open-source project or documentation? Yes: GitHub Pages is enough. No: go to 2.
- Is it a personal site that earns nothing, built with Next.js or React? Yes: Vercel Hobby. No: go to 3.
- Could traffic get large or unpredictable, or do you host many client sites? Yes: Cloudflare, on Pages or Workers static assets. No: go to 4.
- Does your team use Git and want preview URLs for client review? Yes: Vercel Pro, or Netlify Pro for unlimited members. No: go to 5.
- Do you just want to upload a finished folder, with no Git or technical dashboard? Yes: Netlify Drop, or a drag-and-drop host such as sofast. Need a form without code? Netlify.
Choose Cloudflare Pages (or Workers) if… you want unlimited bandwidth on a free plan, no seat charges and the lowest cost for many sites. You need to be comfortable in a developer dashboard.
Choose Vercel if… your team builds with Next.js and Git, values previews, and can pay $20 per deploying seat for commercial work.
Choose Netlify if… you want the easiest first upload, built-in forms and flat team pricing, and can live with credit metering.
Choose GitHub Pages if… the project is non-commercial, public and already lives on GitHub.
Looking beyond these four? Our guide to the best free static website hosting covers smaller drag-and-drop hosts too.
Where sofast fits
sofast is not a developer platform, and it does not try to match Vercel or Cloudflare on features. sofast hosts static HTML sites by drag-and-drop upload. There is no Git, no command line, and SSL is automatic. The free plan includes 50 MB and a sofast subdomain. sofast is built on Cloudflare’s global network. It suits a freelancer or a small studio who wants to drop a folder or ZIP and share a link.
Pricing is flat. Free costs $0 for 1 site and 50 MB, with no credit card. Starter costs $5, Pro $10 and Large $20 per month, billed annually. Custom domains start on Starter. The limits are real: no server-side functions, no Git workflow, no build step and no preview deployments. The free plan has no custom domain, and sofast is a new, pre-launch service without a track record yet. If you need functions or a Git pipeline, pick Cloudflare, Vercel or Netlify. Compare plans on the sofast pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
No official Vercel source says so. Vercel’s documentation describes its own CDN, with 126 points of presence and 19 compute regions (Vercel regions docs, checked September 2026). A 2023 Vercel engineering post, now marked as historical, lists AWS services such as AWS Lambda and Amazon Global Accelerator in its infrastructure. Cloudflare Pages and Cloudflare Workers, by contrast, run on Cloudflare’s own network, which Cloudflare says spans 348 cities.
It depends on the site. For Next.js apps built by a developer team, Vercel remains a strong choice. For a static site, Cloudflare Pages is cheaper at scale, with unlimited bandwidth and no seat charges on every plan. For uploading a folder without Git, Netlify Drop needs no account. For commercial client work on a small budget, Vercel’s $20-per-deploying-seat Pro plan is the most expensive of the four (official pricing, checked September 2026).
For a personal, non-commercial site, Vercel Hobby is more generous: 100 GB of transfer per month, and hitting a limit blocks the feature rather than every site. Netlify Free gives 300 credits a month; 20 production deploys use them all, and running out pauses all your sites. For a commercial site, Vercel Hobby is not allowed, while Netlify’s pricing page states no such restriction (checked September 2026).
There is no official, current benchmark comparing the two for static sites, so treat speed claims with caution. Cloudflare says its network spans 348 cities; Vercel’s docs describe 126 points of presence and 19 compute regions (checked September 2026). For a static site, your image, font and script weight usually matters more than the host. Deploy the same folder to both and test from your visitors’ regions.
Cloudflare. Cloudflare Pages includes unlimited bandwidth on all plans, and on Cloudflare Workers “requests to static assets are free and unlimited.” Vercel Pro includes 1 TB of transfer per month, then bills on demand. Netlify charges 20 credits per GB, so Pro’s 3,000 credits cover at most 150 GB if spent only on bandwidth (our arithmetic). GitHub Pages has a soft limit of 100 GB per month (official docs, checked September 2026).
For a plain static site, yes. Upload the same folder in the Cloudflare dashboard (up to 1,000 files) or connect the same Git repository. Then point your custom domain to Cloudflare by updating your DNS (Domain Name System) records. Cloudflare says nameserver changes can take up to 24 hours. Netlify-specific features, such as Netlify Forms, need a replacement before you switch.
For an agency, Cloudflare Pages is the cheapest default: $0 with unlimited bandwidth, seats and sites. Vercel Pro fits teams that want Git previews, at $20 per month plus $20 per extra deploying seat. Netlify Pro starts at $20 per month with unlimited members, but deploys and bandwidth consume credits. Avoid Vercel Hobby, which bans client work, and GitHub Pages for any client site selling online (official docs, checked September 2026).
No, but the no-Git paths differ. Netlify Drop works without an account. Vercel Drop needs a Vercel account, and each drop creates a new project. Cloudflare’s dashboard accepts a drag-and-drop upload of up to 1,000 files. GitHub Pages lets you upload files to a repository in the browser, 100 at a time. Git becomes useful when you update a site often or work as a team.
Sources
- Vercel Hobby plan (checked September 2026)
- Vercel fair-use guidelines (commercial use) (checked September 2026)
- Vercel limits (checked September 2026)
- Vercel Pro plan (checked September 2026)
- Vercel custom domains (checked September 2026)
- Vercel SSL (checked September 2026)
- Vercel Drop and https://vercel.com/changelog/vercel-drop (checked September 2026)
- Vercel global network and regions (126 PoPs, 19 regions; updated 2026-08-11) (checked September 22, 2026)
- Vercel, “Behind the scenes of Vercel’s infrastructure” (Jan 27, 2023, marked historical) (checked September 22, 2026)
- Cloudflare Pages product page (checked September 22, 2026)
- Cloudflare Pages limits (checked September 2026)
- Cloudflare Pages Direct Upload (checked September 2026)
- Cloudflare Pages docs (Workers recommendation, updated 2026-08-25) (checked September 22, 2026)
- Cloudflare blog, full-stack development on Workers (April 8, 2025)
- Cloudflare Workers pricing (checked September 2026)
- Cloudflare Workers limits (checked September 2026)
- Cloudflare network (348 cities) (checked September 22, 2026)
- Cloudflare DNS full setup (nameserver propagation)
- Netlify credit-based pricing plans (checked September 2026)
- Netlify, how credits work (checked September 2026)
- Netlify pricing (checked September 22, 2026)
- Netlify blog, Pro with unlimited members (April 14, 2026)
- Netlify Drop quickstart (checked September 2026)
- Netlify Forms usage and billing (checked September 2026)
- Netlify HTTPS
- GitHub Pages limits (incl. commercial prohibition and over-limit behavior) (checked September 22, 2026)
- What is GitHub Pages (checked September 2026)
- Securing GitHub Pages with HTTPS (checked September 2026)
- Adding a file to a repository (browser upload, 100 files, 25 MiB) (checked September 22, 2026)
- MDN, What is a web server (static = “served as-is”)
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