Vercel vs Cloudflare Pages for Indie Makers (2026)

Verdict: For a commercial product on Vercel, budget for Pro at $20/mo, because Vercel's pricing FAQ says "Our Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use." For static sites, docs, blogs, bandwidth-heavy free tools and Workers-based apps, Cloudflare Pages is usually cheaper: static asset requests are free and unlimited, and Workers Paid starts at $5/mo. Cloudflare does not publish a commercial-use rule for the Pages free plan, so read its current terms before you rely on Free for revenue.

Every price and limit below comes from Vercel's and Cloudflare's own pages, checked on 7 Nov 2026. Where a page does not say something, we say so rather than guess.

TL;DR#

• Vercel Hobby is not for commercial work. Vercel's pricing FAQ: "Our Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use. Pro is designed for professional developers, freelancers, and businesses" (Vercel pricing).
• Vercel plans: Hobby $0/mo, Pro $20/mo, Enterprise custom. Pro raises included usage and adds on-demand overages, such as 1TB Fast Data Transfer then from $0.15/GB (Vercel pricing).
• Cloudflare Pages Free: 500 builds/month, 1 concurrent build, up to 20,000 files/site, 100 projects/account (Pages limits).
• Cloudflare Workers: Free gives 100,000 requests/day; Paid starts at $5/mo with 10M requests/month included, then $0.30 per additional million, and no charge for egress (Workers pricing).
• Commercial use on Cloudflare Free: not published. Our free hosting for commercial use survey found no rule either way on 22 Oct 2026. That is not permission.

Disclosure: ZeroRaised publishes this comparison and is a launch site for bootstrapped products. Facts come from the linked vendor pages as checked on 7 Nov 2026. ZeroRaised has no commercial relationship with Vercel or Cloudflare and earns nothing if you sign up. This is not legal advice.

Why this is a different question from "which host is free?"#

Our free hosting for commercial use guide surveys what 14 vendors publish about running a paid product on a free plan. This post goes one level deeper on the two hosts indie makers most often shortlist for a frontend, a marketing site or a light full-stack app: Vercel and Cloudflare Pages.

The decision has three parts:

1. Terms. Can you legally run a paid product on the free plan?
2. Cost curve. What does it cost when traffic grows past the free allowance?
3. Fit. Which platform suits your framework and the shape of your app?

Vercel settles part one plainly. Cloudflare leaves it open. Parts two and three are where most makers actually decide.

Vercel vs Cloudflare Pages at a glance#

Sources: Vercel pricing, Vercel Hobby docs, Pages limits, Workers pricing, Cloudflare developer platform plans. "Not covered" means we did not verify that item for this post, not that it is missing.

Commercial use: the part that decides it for many makers#

Vercel says no on Hobby#

Vercel's pricing FAQ is direct: "Our Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use. Pro is designed for professional developers, freelancers, and businesses" (Vercel pricing). Its Hobby plan docs describe the same plan.

So if your project takes payments, sells a subscription, runs client work or otherwise makes money, the Vercel plan you should budget for is Pro at $20/mo (or Enterprise). That is the vendor's rule, not our reading.

Our read: this rule is easy to miss. The free plan is generous for side projects, and that makes it easy to forget the terms when the first customer arrives. Put $20/mo in your costs on the day you plan to charge, not after.

Cloudflare Pages Free: not published#

Our free hosting for commercial use survey checked Cloudflare's pages on 22 Oct 2026 and recorded the commercial-use rule for Cloudflare Pages Free, and for Workers Free, as not published. The pages checked did not state a rule either way.

That is easy to misread, so to be clear:

• It is not an explicit "yes, commercial use is allowed".
• It is not a "no" either.
• It means Cloudflare's pages, as checked, were silent on it.

We did not find a clear published sentence from Cloudflare granting commercial use on the free plan, so we will not claim one. If revenue will depend on Cloudflare's free plan, read Cloudflare's current terms yourself or ask Cloudflare in writing, and keep the dated reply.

Our read: the cheapest insurance is Workers Paid at $5/mo. It does not by itself answer a terms question, but it moves you onto a paid plan with a published price and much higher included usage, which most paid products will want anyway.

Free plan limits compared#

Vercel Hobby#

Vercel's pricing page lists these included amounts on Hobby, among others (Vercel pricing):

• Fast Data Transfer: 100 GB
• CDN Requests: 1M
• Function Invocations: 1M
• Active CPU: 4 hours
• Web Analytics: 50K events/mo

For a personal portfolio or open-source demo, that is plenty. The limits that matter are the terms above, not the numbers.

Cloudflare Pages Free and Workers Free#

Cloudflare's Pages limits page lists, for the Free plan (Pages limits):

• 500 builds per month
• 1 concurrent build
• up to 20,000 files per site
• 100 projects per account
• 100 custom domains in the Free tier table

Pages Functions, the server-side code you add to a Pages project, are billed as Workers. Workers Free allows 100,000 requests per day with 10ms of CPU time per invocation (Workers pricing). The same pricing notes say static asset requests are free and unlimited.

Our read: the 500 builds a month cap is the Pages limit you are most likely to feel, if you push often and every push builds. Batch commits or limit which branches build. The 10ms CPU limit is the Workers one to test early, because heavier server-side work can hit it.

Paid plans and the cost curve#

Vercel Pro: $20/mo with on-demand overages#

Pro is $20/mo, a seat-style plan with higher included usage and on-demand overages. Examples from the pricing page (Vercel pricing):

• Fast Data Transfer: 1TB included, then from $0.15/GB
• CDN Requests: 10M included, then from $2 per 1M

Cloudflare Workers Paid: from $5/mo#

Workers Paid starts at $5/mo and includes 10M requests a month plus 30M CPU milliseconds, with additional requests at $0.30 per million. The Workers pricing page lists no charge for egress or bandwidth (Workers pricing).

Worked example: a launch-week traffic spike#

These are illustrations using only the published figures above. They ignore every other line item (CPU beyond the included amount, storage, add-ons, tax) and Vercel's "from" pricing means overage rates can be higher than the starting figure.

Scenario A: a static marketing site and blog serving 1.5TB in a month.

• Vercel Pro: $20 base, 1TB included, 500 GB over at from $0.15/GB = from $75. From about $95 for the month.
• Cloudflare Pages: static asset requests are free and unlimited. $0 on the Free plan for the static assets, or $5/mo if you are on Workers Paid for other reasons.

Scenario B: an app making 20M server-side requests in a month.

• Cloudflare Workers Paid: $5 base, 10M included, 10M extra at $0.30 per million = $3. About $8 for the month, before any CPU beyond the 30M ms included.
• Vercel Pro: 10M CDN requests included, then from $2 per 1M, on top of the $20 base. Function invocation and CPU pricing on Pro were not in the figures we verified, so we do not total this one.

Our read: Cloudflare's model favours anything bandwidth-heavy. A free tool that goes viral, a docs site or a big image gallery is where the gap is widest. Vercel's model charges more as traffic grows, and in return you get the platform many Next.js teams prefer. Neither number decides it on its own: what matters is your traffic shape and how much time each platform saves you.

Framework fit and developer experience#

Where Vercel wins#

Vercel is the natural home for Next.js. Indie makers choose it for Next.js-native developer experience, preview deploys, and framework integrations that mostly work without configuration. If your app leans on Next.js features and you would rather not think about hosting, that time saved is worth real money to a solo founder.

The trade: for a commercial product it is a $20/mo minimum, and bandwidth past 1TB costs extra.

Where Cloudflare Pages wins#

Cloudflare Pages suits:

• static sites, docs and blogs, where unlimited free static asset requests do most of the work
• bandwidth-sensitive free tools and lead magnets that might spike
• apps already built around Workers, where Pages Functions and Workers share one billing model
• makers with many small projects, given 100 projects per account on Free

If you are moving an app off Deno Deploy, our Deno Deploy alternatives guide covers Cloudflare Workers and the other options.

The trade: you are working within Workers limits, such as 10ms CPU per invocation on Free, and you should test your framework's build and server features on Cloudflare before you commit.

Who should pick which#

This is our editorial advice, based on the published terms and prices above.

Pick Vercel (on Pro) if#

• your product is a Next.js app and you value preview deploys and framework integrations
• you are charging customers and accept $20/mo as a fixed cost from day one
• your bandwidth is likely to stay under 1TB a month, or the overage is small next to your revenue

Pick Cloudflare Pages if#

• you are hosting a static site, docs, a blog or a marketing site
• your product is a free tool or content site where traffic can spike without revenue to match
• your backend is already on Workers, or you are moving off Deno Deploy
• you want a paid plan that starts at $5/mo

Use both#

A common split: the marketing site, blog and docs on Cloudflare Pages, and the logged-in app on Vercel Pro. Bandwidth-heavy public pages then sit on the cheaper model, and the app keeps the Next.js workflow.

A quick decision table#

Hosting is one line in a bigger budget. Our guide on how to bootstrap a SaaS shows where it fits alongside payments, auth and your first customers.

Frequently asked questions#

Can I use Vercel's free Hobby plan for a commercial project?#

Not according to Vercel. Its pricing FAQ says "Our Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use" and that Pro is designed for professional developers, freelancers and businesses. If your project earns money, budget for Pro at $20/mo or Enterprise.

Can I use Cloudflare Pages Free for a commercial project?#

Cloudflare's pages checked for the ZeroRaised free tiers dataset on 22 Oct 2026 did not publish a commercial-use rule for the Pages free plan. Not published is not the same as allowed. Read Cloudflare's current terms or ask Cloudflare in writing before revenue depends on the free plan. Our free hosting for commercial use guide explains how to check.

Is Cloudflare Pages cheaper than Vercel?#

For most static and bandwidth-heavy sites, yes. Cloudflare's Workers pricing notes say static asset requests are free and unlimited, and the Workers pricing page lists no charge for egress. Workers Paid starts at $5/mo. Vercel Pro is $20/mo with 1TB Fast Data Transfer included, then from $0.15/GB.

Which is better for Next.js?#

Vercel is the more natural home for Next.js, with framework-native developer experience, preview deploys and integrations. If Next.js on Vercel is your stack and you are charging customers, plan for Pro rather than Hobby.

What are the Cloudflare Workers free limits?#

Workers Free allows 100,000 requests per day and 10ms of CPU time per invocation. Pages Functions are billed as Workers, so they share these limits. Workers Paid starts at $5/mo with 10M requests a month and 30M CPU milliseconds included.

Ship it, then launch it#

ZeroRaised is a launch directory for products built without institutional VC. Once your site is live on a plan that suits paying customers, submit your product for free. For more guides on tools, costs and launching without investors, join the ZeroRaised newsletter.

Sources#

• Vercel pricing, last checked 7 Nov 2026
• Vercel Hobby plan docs, last checked 7 Nov 2026
• Cloudflare Pages limits, last checked 7 Nov 2026
• Cloudflare Workers pricing, last checked 7 Nov 2026
• Cloudflare developer platform plans, last checked 7 Nov 2026
• ZeroRaised: Free hosting for commercial use, commercial-use survey checked 22 Oct 2026