Netlify alternatives (with real prices)
Updated 2026-10-28
On Netlify's credit plans, bandwidth costs 20 credits per GB, so a site doing 100,000 visits a month (about 150 GB in our model) spends 3,000 credits on transfer alone, the whole Pro allowance. That works out to $30.00/mo in our estimate. The same static site is $0.00 on Cloudflare Pages and $2.98 on DigitalOcean App Platform.
Why people leave Netlify
- Bandwidth is metered from the first GB. 20 credits per GB, on every plan. At the Pro pack rate (1,500 credits for $10) that is about $0.13/GB.
- Deploys cost credits. Each production deploy is 15 credits. Deploy Previews and branch deploys are free. A site that ships 20 times a month spends 300 credits on deploys, the entire Free allowance.
- The Free plan pauses everything. Netlify's docs say that once a Free account's 300 credits are used up, all its projects are paused and visitors see a "Site not available" page.
- Requests are metered too. 2 credits per 10,000 web requests, including asset requests, redirects and function calls.
To be fair to Netlify: paid plans don't overspend by surprise. Auto recharge is off by default, Forms submissions are free on credit plans, and Pro now has unlimited members, with bigger monthly tiers (5,000 credits for $33 up to 20,000 for $126) that are cheaper than buying packs.
Estimated monthly cost for a static site
| Host | 10,000 visits | 100,000 visits | 1,000,000 visits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel | $20.00 | $26.50 | $120.00 |
| Netlify | $9.00 | $30.00 | $225.00 |
| Railway | $7.75 | $14.50 | $82.00 |
| Render | $1.50 | $21.75 | $224.25 |
| Fly.io | $3.99 | $6.69 | $33.69 |
| DigitalOcean App Platform | $0.28 | $2.98 | $29.98 |
| Cloudflare Pages / Workers | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Hostinger VPS | $11.99 | $11.99 | $11.99 |
| Cloudways | $11.00 | $11.00 | $11.00 |
| Coolify (self-host) | €11.99 + $0 | €11.99 + $0 | €11.99 + $0 |
| Dokploy | €11.99 + $0 | €11.99 + $0 | €11.99 + $0 |
| Hetzner Cloud | €6.49 + $0 | €6.49 + $0 | €6.49 + $0 |
| DigitalOcean Droplets | $6.00 | $6.00 | $9.97 |
Assumptions: 1.5 MB transferred and 20 requests per visit, 20 production deploys a month on Netlify. Use the calculator to switch to a server-rendered app or change the traffic.
The options
1. Cloudflare Pages
Requests to static assets are free and unlimited, and Cloudflare charges nothing for egress. The Free plan allows 500 builds a month and 20,000 files per site; Functions are billed as Workers (100,000 requests/day free, or $5/mo for 10M). Catch: server-side code runs on the Workers runtime, not Node, so frameworks need an adapter. Profile
2. DigitalOcean App Platform
Up to 3 static-site apps free, each with 1 GiB of transfer, then $0.02/GiB. Extra static apps are $3/mo each, and containers start at $5/mo with 50 GiB. Catch: the free allowance is small, so a busy static site pays per GiB, just at a fraction of Netlify's rate. Profile
3. Vercel
Closest to Netlify's workflow. Pro is $20 per developer seat with a $20 usage credit, and Flat Rate CDN includes 1M requests and 1 TB of transfer. Catch: Hobby is for personal, non-commercial use only, and 1M CDN requests is only about 50,000 visits at 20 requests each, so a busy site moves to a paid tier or on-demand rates. Profile · Vercel vs Netlify
4. Render
Static sites on the $0 Hobby workspace with 5 GB of bandwidth, then $0.15/GB. Catch: past the allowance that is a higher per-GB rate than Netlify's pack rate, so Render only wins on low traffic or when you also need a backend ($7/mo web service). Profile
5. Fly.io
Run the site as a small container: shared-cpu-1x with 512 MB is $3.69/mo, plus $0.02/GB egress in North America and Europe ($0.04/GB in South America and Asia Pacific). Catch: you manage a Dockerfile and a machine instead of a static deploy. Profile
Which one
Mostly static site: Cloudflare Pages, because transfer is free and that is the line item driving a Netlify bill. Want a dashboard that feels like Netlify and you have real traffic: Vercel Pro, with the spend limit on. Need a backend next to the site: compare container hosts in Railway vs Render vs Fly.io at 100k visits. Staying on Netlify: pick a Pro credit tier sized to your usage instead of stacking packs.
Estimates only. Prices are in USD, exclude taxes, and were checked against the official pages on 2026-10-28. Netlify Pro credit tier prices come from Netlify's credit-based pricing plans docs.
Sources
- https://www.netlify.com/pricing/ (checked 2026-10-28)
- https://docs.netlify.com/manage/accounts-and-billing/billing/billing-for-credit-based-plans/how-credits-work/ (checked 2026-10-28)
- https://docs.netlify.com/manage/accounts-and-billing/billing/billing-for-credit-based-plans/credit-based-pricing-plans/ (checked 2026-10-28)
- https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/pricing/ (checked 2026-10-28)
- https://developers.cloudflare.com/pages/platform/limits/ (checked 2026-10-28)
- https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/app-platform (checked 2026-10-28)
- https://vercel.com/pricing (checked 2026-10-28)
- https://render.com/pricing (checked 2026-10-28)
- https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/ (checked 2026-10-28)
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