Hosting shortlist
Ella’s starting point at intake for “where will it run”. Two or three well-known managed options per kind of product, each with when to pick it. It holds no prices or free-tier limits, because those change; Rohan checks them on the providers’ own pages for each project, and Bea prices from what he finds. How hosting is chosen and set up: foundation, hosting.
Last reviewed: 2026-11-12. The role refresh re-checks this list each quarter.
| Kind of product | Options | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|
| Website with no backend (pages, docs, a landing page) | Cloudflare Pages · Netlify · GitHub Pages | Cloudflare or Netlify for previews per PR and forms; GitHub Pages when the site lives in the repo and needs nothing else |
| Web app built on a front-end framework | Vercel · Netlify · Render | Vercel for Next.js; Netlify for most other frameworks; Render when it also needs a long-running server |
| Backend, API or background jobs | Render · Railway · Fly.io | Render for the simplest setup with previews; Railway for quick multi-service projects; Fly.io when users are spread across regions |
| Database, sign-in and file storage | Supabase · Neon · Firebase | Supabase for Postgres with sign-in and storage in one; Neon for plain Postgres with branch copies for previews; Firebase for mobile-first apps already on Google |
| Mobile app builds and updates | Expo EAS · Codemagic | Expo for React Native; Codemagic for Flutter or native code. Both build and sign without your own Mac |
| AI feature or agent | The web or backend host above, plus the model provider’s API | Long-running or scheduled agents go on a backend host, not a web host with short time limits |
Large clouds (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) are not a default for a beginner: they take more setup and upkeep. Use one when there’s a reason (credits, a rule your users require, a service only it offers), with infrastructure as code.
Anything off this list (another cloud, a company’s own servers, a provider the owner already pays for) is fine. Rohan researches it for that project from the provider’s own docs and any official skill it publishes, and the practice and skill review vets that skill as usual.