The short answer
- Moving from Vercel Pro to Netlify at 1 seat saves $82 in the first year, after setup and upkeep time (Stackcut's model: modeled, not measured).
- Netlify's official migration guide moves 3 kinds of data in full and 1 partly; 2 things stay behind. What moves
- 3 public accounts of making this switch: 3 switched. Read them
- 2 comparison pages checked, each labeled with who wrote it. What they claim
What Vercel and Netlify cost
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, as stored in the Stackcut catalog. Each price links its source.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel Pro | $20/user/mo | not shown | $20/month platform fee with 1 deploying seat and $20 of monthly usage credit (extra deploying seats $20/month each; viewer seats free); Flat Rate CDN base tier included: 1M CDN requests and 1 TB data transfer a month (next tiers $20/month for 10M requests and 50 TB, $100 for 50M, $300 for 150M; a tier moves up at the next billing cycle); on demand: Fast Data Transfer $0.15/GB, Edge Requests $2 per 1M, Fluid Active CPU from $0.128/hour, provisioned memory from $0.0106/GB-hour, function invocations $0.60 per 1M; unlimited projects; 6,000 deployments a day; default spend alert at $200 |
| Netlify Personal | $9/mo | not shown | 1,000 credits/mo; 1 member; extra credits $5 per 500 (auto recharge) |
| Netlify Pro | $20/mo | not shown | 3,000 credits/mo; unlimited members; extra credits $10 per 1,500; higher credit tiers up to 20,000/mo |
| Netlify Pro 5,000 credits | $33/mo | not shown | 5,000 credits/mo, unused credits roll over; unlimited members |
| Netlify Pro 10,000 credits | $63/mo | not shown | 10,000 credits/mo, rollover; unlimited members |
- Vercel free plan: Hobby: personal, non-commercial use only; 1 developer seat; 100 GB Fast Data Transfer, 1M Edge Requests, 4 CPU-hours Active CPU, 360 GB-hours provisioned memory, 1M function invocations, 5,000 image transformations a month; 200 projects; 100 deployments a day; 1 hour of runtime logs; a feature that hits its limit pauses for up to 30 days vercel.com
- Netlify free plan: 300 credits/month hard limit (projects pause until next cycle when reached); 1 free member netlify.com
Choose by the application and the team
Netlify is a managed-hosting candidate when your application can use its framework adapter and you want to retain a Git-based deployment workflow. For a Next.js app, compare the documented adapter behavior with the exact routes and features your product uses. docs.netlify.com
Keep Vercel when its framework-integrated caching, rendering and image pipeline already covers the job and the migration has not demonstrated an equivalent outcome for the application. The decision is about a working stack, not simply whether another host can build the repository. vercel.com
Check the runtime differences
- Netlify’s OpenNext adapter maps rendering, route handlers and Server Actions to serverless functions, and middleware to an edge function. That deployment mapping is the starting point for checking the app. docs.netlify.com
- Review documented rewrite and middleware-order differences. Edge-runtime SSR is executed in the functions region using Node.js; do not infer execution location from an unchanged Next.js runtime label. docs.netlify.com
- Map environment values by scope and deploy context. Confirm that production-only values remain restricted and that preview credentials point to preview resources. docs.netlify.com
Run a migration rehearsal before switching the domain
Deploy a candidate revision and exercise pages, route handlers, redirects, image delivery, cache revalidation and a complete signed-in flow. These checks are your acceptance work; the adapter’s own compatibility tests do not establish that your application has passed. docs.netlify.com
- Check build-time and runtime values separately, including the callback URLs used by your application integrations. A preview that renders static pages can still lack the configuration a server-side flow needs. docs.netlify.com
- Keep a rollback route and include state outside hosting in the plan. The replacement recipe covers a defined deployment job; it does not automatically migrate every database, storage or third-party service used by the app. recipe
Compare actual usage rather than the entry plan
Vercel Pro’s bill combines platform fees, deploying seats, add-ons and on-demand usage. Count only teammates who need deployment permissions, then include the workload dimensions your project actually uses. vercel.com
Netlify’s credit-based plans meter production deploys, compute, bandwidth and requests. A team that publishes frequently can consume credits even when visitor traffic is modest. Check whether the account uses credit-based or legacy billing before applying the comparison. docs.netlify.com
On credit-based plans, exhausting the balance can pause the team’s web projects. Review usage and recharge behavior along with price so the chosen budget matches the availability you need. docs.netlify.com
Building changes the boundary, not just the bill
Switching to another managed host avoids taking on server administration, but still creates migration, configuration and monitoring work. A custom hosting platform is a different scope. Use the recipe’s setup and upkeep assumptions as a starting estimate, not a claim of savings achieved by your team. recipe
What comparison pages say
Each claim as the page makes it, and who it favors. Vendor pages are labeled; weigh them accordingly.
2 pages compared, 1 of them written by one of the two vendors. Claims are the pages' own, paraphrased; prices in them may be older than the catalog prices above.
| About | The page says | Favors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Three developers cost $60 plus usage on Vercel versus $20 plus usage credits on Netlify. | Netlify | Justin McKelvey independent |
| Free plan | Vercel's Hobby plan bans commercial use; Netlify's free plan allows commercial projects, limited only by usage credits. | Netlify | Justin McKelvey independent |
| Features | Vercel writes Next.js itself and new features land there first; Netlify supports it through an adapter without full parity. | Vercel | Justin McKelvey independent |
| Limits | Netlify's free tier includes 300 credits a month, roughly 15GB of bandwidth or 20 deploys; Vercel Hobby includes 100GB of data transfer. | Unclear | Justin McKelvey independent |
| Limits | Vercel functions run up to 800 seconds (1,800 with supported runtimes); Netlify's Functions cap at 60 seconds and the limit isn't configurable. | Vercel | Vercel vendor page |
| Features | Vercel middleware runs full Node.js; Netlify's middleware uses a Deno-based runtime with a 50ms CPU time limit. | Vercel | Vercel vendor page |
| Performance | Vercel's ISR purges globally in about 300ms; Netlify's propagates in a few seconds. | Vercel | Vercel vendor page |
| Price | Netlify's Pro plan allows unlimited team members for a flat $20 a month with 3,000 included credits. | Netlify | Vercel vendor page |
Moving from Vercel to Netlify
What Netlify's importer carries over, what it leaves behind, and any help it offers switchers.
To Netlify
Official guide docs.netlify.com · Tools: netlify.toml, Netlify Image CDN, Netlify Functions
Moves: Build command and framework detection (full); next/image (full); ISR, SSR, middleware and API routes (full); Environment variables (partial). docs.netlify.com
Doesn't move: Vercel Cron Jobs have no stated Netlify equivalent in this checklist; vercel.json redirect/header syntax, which must move into next.config.js or Netlify's own config. docs.netlify.com
Watch out for:
- No one-click importer exists; Netlify's own page says to translate configuration by hand or ask an AI coding agent to do it docs.netlify.com
- Cron jobs aren't addressed by the checklist; branch-deploy search indexing must be disabled by hand if unwanted docs.netlify.com
Official guide docs.netlify.com · Tools: AI coding agent (Cursor, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, etc.) run with Netlify's migration prompt
Moves: /api routes (full); /edge middleware (partial); process.env reads in edge code (partial). docs.netlify.com
Watch out for:
- Edge functions move from Node.js to Deno: process.env becomes Netlify.env.get() and imports need Deno-compatible equivalents docs.netlify.com
- This is a prompt for a general-purpose coding agent, not a pre-built automated migration tool docs.netlify.com
From each destination's own migration docs and switching pages, plus community write-ups where no official guide exists, each checked against its page. Confirm terms on the linked page before you rely on an offer.
People who moved from Vercel to Netlify
3 public accounts of leaving Vercel: 3 switched. Summaries are ours; each links the original, and each was checked against its page before it appeared here.
Zelkulon moved its own site and client projects to Netlify to unlock free-plan commercial use, completing the switch in under an hour once DNS, CORS-allowlist and SSL-ordering pitfalls were understood. Zelkulon
Migrated after Vercel suspended the account on hitting an undocumented 1,000-image-optimization-per-month cap; Netlify needed a manually installed Next.js plugin and different redirect syntax but removed the optimization ceiling. Mathew Chan
Flossbank, a platform funding open-source maintainers, left Vercel after it restricted org-repo deploys to paid Team accounts; the Netlify move was zero-downtime in about 8 hours after fixing a missing serverless target config. Joel Wasserman
How to leave Vercel
Export first, then cancel. Every step links the vendor's own help page, checked on the date shown.
How to leave Vercel
Export first
- Invoices: Team → Settings → Invoices → download each PDF (PDF). Invoices are also emailed to the team's invoice recipient; keep those emails. vercel.com
What you lose
- Team members other than the original owner
- Commercial use, on Hobby
Cancel
- Download every invoice PDF you need: a deleted team's invoice history can't be recovered.
- Move connected Stores and Domains to their new home first; the downgrade flow requires it.
- Dashboard → your team → Settings → Billing → Plan → Downgrade Plan.
- Refunds
- Not stated for a downgrade. Each invoice charges the coming cycle plus the previous cycle's extra usage.
- After you cancel
- All active members except the original owner are removed. Each account can have only one Hobby team, so you may have to delete or merge a team.
FAQ
Is Netlify cheaper than Vercel?
Modeled, not measured: moving from Vercel Pro to Netlify at 1 seat saves $82 in the first year, after setup and upkeep time at $50/hour. It depends on your plan, seats and usage. the math
Can I move my Vercel data to Netlify?
Netlify's official guide moves: Build command and framework detection; next/image; ISR, SSR, middleware and API routes; Environment variables. It doesn't move: Vercel Cron Jobs have no stated Netlify equivalent in this checklist; vercel.json redirect/header syntax, which must move into next.config.js or Netlify's own config. docs.netlify.com
What do I lose when I leave Vercel?
Per Vercel's own pages, leaving or downgrading loses: Team members other than the original owner; Commercial use, on Hobby. vercel.com
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find_alternatives({"vendor": "Vercel"})