Netlify vs Vercel vs Cloudflare Pages: Free Plans Compared 2026

In the Netlify vs Vercel vs Cloudflare Pages comparison, Cloudflare Pages gives the most generous free tier for static sites: unlimited static requests and bandwidth, with commercial use allowed. Vercel Hobby is the smoothest for Next.js but is non-commercial only. Netlify Free includes unlimited built-in forms, but its 300 monthly credits are a hard cap that pauses every site when used up.

This post compares the three free plans side by side, explains what happens when you hit each limit, and gives a verdict per use case. If you're still choosing between all the options, including GitHub Pages, start with our guide to free static website hosting.

Limits checked 14 October 2026 against each provider's official docs. Free plans change often; check the linked pages before you commit.

Netlify vs Vercel vs Cloudflare Pages: the free plans side by side

Sources: Netlify credit-based plans, Vercel Hobby, Cloudflare Pages limits and Pages Functions pricing.

	Netlify Free	Vercel Hobby	Cloudflare Pages Free
Bandwidth and requests	Shared 300 credits/month: 20 credits per GB, 2 credits per 10,000 requests	100 GB Fast Data Transfer, 1M CDN requests/month	Static asset requests free and unlimited
Builds	Build minutes not counted; each production deploy costs 15 credits; 1 concurrent build	100 deployments/day, 45 min max build, 1 concurrent build	500 builds/month, 20 min timeout, 1 concurrent build
Functions	Metered as compute (10 credits per GB-hour)	1M invocations, 4 active CPU-hours/month, 300 s max duration	Workers Free: 100,000 requests/day, 10 ms CPU per invocation
Forms	Netlify Forms, unlimited and free	None built in	None built in
Commercial use	No restriction on Netlify's pricing pages	Not allowed on Hobby	No restriction in Cloudflare's Pages limits
Team seats	1 owner, unlimited Reviewers	1 developer seat	Not listed in the Pages limits
Custom domains	Included with SSL	50 per project	100 per project
Preview deployments	Unlimited, 0 credits	Included	Unlimited
At the limit	All projects paused until next cycle	Wait 30 days; no paid overages	Static keeps serving; Functions return Error 1027

Each column hides a different trade-off, so the sections below go through the rows that matter most.

Vercel vs Netlify: which free plan goes further?

On raw traffic, Vercel Hobby goes further for most sites. Its allowance of 100 GB of transfer and a million CDN requests a month is separate from builds, so deploying often doesn't eat into what visitors can use.

Netlify's credit system pools everything. As a rough estimate from Netlify's published credit costs, 300 credits is about 15 GB of bandwidth if you use nothing else, or 10 production deploys (150 credits) plus about 7.5 GB. Deploy previews, branch deploys and rollbacks cost nothing.

The catch with Vercel is the licence, not the limits. The fair use guidelines restrict Hobby to non-commercial personal use, so a client site, a SaaS landing page or an ad-supported blog needs Pro. We cover the detail in can I use free hosting for a commercial site.

Netlify wins on two things: unlimited Netlify Forms, and no commercial restriction on its pricing pages. Vercel wins on framework integration, especially Next.js.

Cloudflare Pages vs Netlify

Cloudflare Pages is the stronger free host for traffic. Static asset requests are free and unlimited, so a viral blog post can't take your site offline the way Netlify's credit cap can.

Netlify has the better built-in extras: form handling, a polished deploy UI and unlimited deploy previews that don't consume credits. Cloudflare Pages limits you to 500 builds a month, 20,000 files per site and 25 MiB per file, which is plenty for most static sites but can bite large documentation sites.

If you need server-side code, Cloudflare's Pages Functions run on the Workers Free allowance of 100,000 requests a day, reset at midnight UTC. Netlify functions draw from the same 300-credit pool as everything else.

Cloudflare Pages vs Vercel

This comes down to licence and frameworks. Cloudflare allows commercial use on Free as far as its Pages limits go, with unlimited static traffic. Vercel Hobby is non-commercial but has the most seamless Next.js support and a generous function allowance.

There's one thing to know about Cloudflare's direction. Cloudflare now recommends Workers with static assets for new projects and says new features are focused on Workers, although Pages continues to work. Static requests are free and unlimited on both, so the free-tier economics are the same. Our Cloudflare Pages free plan limits post covers the differences.

How do builds and deploys compare?

All three connect to a Git repository and redeploy on every push, with preview URLs for branches or pull requests. The difference is how each one counts the work.

Vercel's limits allow 100 deployments a day with builds of up to 45 minutes, and serving static files doesn't count as a build. Cloudflare Pages allows 500 builds a month with a 20-minute timeout, which works out at roughly 16 a day. Netlify no longer counts build minutes, but every production deploy costs 15 credits, so 20 production deploys alone would use the whole 300-credit allowance.

For a site you update a few times a week, none of this matters. For a docs site that redeploys on every merge, Netlify's per-deploy cost adds up fastest, while previews stay free on all three. All three allow one concurrent build on the free plan, so busy repositories will queue.

What happens when you hit the free limit?

This is where the three plans differ most, and it's often the deciding factor.

• Netlify: at 300 credits, all projects are paused. Visitors see "Site not available", forms stop accepting submissions, and you can't deploy to production until the next cycle or an upgrade. You get alerts at 50, 75, 90 and 100 percent.
• Vercel: Hobby has no paid overages. If you exceed a limit, you generally have to wait 30 days before using that feature again, or upgrade to Pro.
• Cloudflare Pages: static files keep serving because static requests are unlimited. Only Functions are capped: past 100,000 requests in a day, they return Error 1027 until the reset.

Which free host should you choose?

Use case	Best pick	Why
Personal Next.js project or portfolio	Vercel Hobby	Best Next.js support, generous traffic allowance
Business, client or monetised site, free	Cloudflare Pages	Unlimited static traffic, no commercial restriction in its limits
Small site that needs a form with zero setup	Netlify Free	Unlimited Netlify Forms; keep an eye on credits
High or spiky traffic	Cloudflare Pages	Static requests never run out
Docs site with many files	Vercel or Netlify	Cloudflare's 20,000-file cap may be tight
Small team of developers	Cloudflare Pages, or a paid plan	Netlify Free and Vercel Hobby allow only one developer; confirm Cloudflare's member options for your account

If your site is a small personal project hosted from a public repo, GitHub Pages is also worth considering; see GitHub Pages vs Netlify.

Moving between them

All three build from a Git repository and serve a folder of static output, so switching is usually a matter of connecting the repo to the new host, setting the build command and output directory, and updating DNS. Host-specific features are what tie you in: Netlify Forms, _redirects and _headers files, or framework-specific Vercel features. Keeping these to a minimum makes a later move painless.

Add a working contact form to your static site

Vercel and Cloudflare Pages serve files and can't process form POSTs on their own, and Netlify Forms only works while you host on Netlify. A hosted form backend works on all three: point your form's action at a FormSubmit endpoint and submissions arrive by email. The free plan includes 1 form and 50 submissions a month. See the guides for Vercel and Netlify, or create an email form.