Honest comparison — trade-offs included

Looking for a Vercel alternative?

Vercel bills per seat plus usage — your invoice moves with your traffic and your headcount. G7Cloud runs your Next.js app in a dedicated container with git deploys, PR previews and a managed database, at a fixed £/mo.

Free plan forever · no card · 30-day money-back on paid plans

First, credit where it's due

Who Vercel are

Vercel is the company behind Next.js and the best-known "frontend cloud": git push, instant global deployment across an edge network, serverless and edge functions, and first-class preview deployments for every pull request. Its free Hobby tier is generous, and Pro is $20 per user per month plus usage as of July 2026. For globally distributed frontends, it is the reference platform.

So this page is not a hatchet job. It's a straight look at where the Vercel model costs you money or ownership, where G7Cloud's fixed-price, own-your-code model works better — and, further down, where Vercel is still the better fit.

The case for switching

Why people leave Vercel for G7Cloud

Model differences, not marketing differences. Every claim below is about how the two platforms actually work and bill.

Per-seat pricing taxes the team

Vercel Pro is $20 per user per month plus usage, as of July 2026 — a five-person team pays five seats before serving a single request. G7Cloud plans are flat: Pro is £39/mo whether one person deploys or ten, and Agency (£99/mo) adds proper team roles — owner, admin, developer, editor, viewer.

Usage line items are unpredictable

Bandwidth, function invocations, image optimisation, build minutes — on usage-billed platforms the monthly invoice is a function of traffic, and a good month or a misbehaving crawler moves it. G7Cloud has no usage billing at all: ScaleShield filters bot traffic at the edge, and your price is the plan price.

A real server, not just functions

Your app runs in a dedicated, always-on container — a persistent Node process (18/20/22), not functions that cold-start on demand. WebSockets, long-running jobs, cron jobs, an in-browser terminal, environment variables: it behaves like the server your framework was tested against.

The database is included, not adjacent

On Vercel, data lives in marketplace or third-party services with their own bills. G7Cloud Business and above includes managed PostgreSQL 15 and Redis 7 instances alongside your app, plus per-tenant WireGuard private networking on Pro.

You keep the workflow you like

Git push-to-deploy from GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket; PR preview environments on Pro; live build logs; rollback via redeploy; deploy webhooks to Slack or Discord. The Vercel workflow is the part worth keeping — so we kept it.

The honest bit

Where Vercel is still the better fit

No platform wins everything. If the points below describe you, Vercel may genuinely serve you better — and we'd rather tell you now than after a migration.

The global edge network

This is the big one. Vercel serves your site from points of presence around the world; G7Cloud serves it from UK infrastructure. For UK and European audiences the difference is small; for a global audience, Vercel’s edge will serve far-away visitors faster. If your users are worldwide and latency-sensitive, Vercel is the better fit.

Serverless and edge functions

There are no serverless functions here — your app is a persistent container. That removes cold starts and makes WebSockets easy, but it also means no scale-to-zero economics and no edge middleware running next to the visitor.

First-party Next.js integration

Vercel builds Next.js; new framework features land there first and are tuned for their platform. G7Cloud runs Next.js as a standard Node server build — solid and unexotic, but we will not have day-one support for every platform-specific feature.

A generous free tier for hobby projects

Vercel’s Hobby tier is hard to beat for side projects. G7Cloud’s Free plan covers the AI Website Builder, but hosting your own git-deployed app starts at Starter (£9/mo).

G7Cloud vs Vercel, side by side

Model-level comparison — how each platform is built and billed.

Feature
G7Cloud
Vercel
Pricing model
Flat £/mo per plan — unlimited team members
Pro $20/user/mo + usage (as of July 2026)
Runtime
Dedicated always-on container, Node 18/20/22
Serverless + edge functions
Global edge network
No — UK infrastructure with ScaleShield at the edge
Yes — global points of presence
PR previews
Included on Pro (£39/mo)
Included
Database
Managed Postgres 15 + Redis 7 included (Business+)
Marketplace/third-party, billed separately
WebSockets / long-running work
Native — persistent process, cron jobs included
Constrained by function model
Frameworks
Next.js, Astro, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Remix + 9 more, or custom Docker
Broad framework support, Next.js first-party
Bill after a traffic spike
Unchanged
Higher — usage line items scale with traffic

Vercel Pro is $20 per user per month plus usage charges (bandwidth, functions, image optimisation), as of July 2026. G7Cloud plans are flat GBP with no per-seat or usage components.

Want the full head-to-head? Read our complete G7Cloud vs Vercel comparison.

Real prices, one ladder

What switching actually costs

Fixed GBP prices. No usage billing, no per-seat fees, no renewal increases. Every plan includes the AI Website Builder, free SSL and ScaleShield protection.

Recommended for ex-Vercel users

Pro

For freelancers and power users — 10 sites, highest AI allowance.

£39/moor £31.17/mo billed annually — save 20%
  • 10 hosted sites
  • Dedicated MySQL database per site (included)
  • AI Website Builder — 20 projects, publish 10
  • 500K AI tokens per day
  • Git deploys with PR preview environments
  • WireGuard private networking
  • Priority support
  • Everything in Business included

Moving from Vercel

We move you. Free. You approve every step.

Moving a git-deployed app is the easiest migration there is: connect your GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket repo, we build it with live logs, and you preview it on yourapp.apps.g7cloud.com before touching DNS. Our team helps with environment variables, databases and the cutover, free. Your Vercel deployment stays live until you switch.

  • Assisted by our team — we do it with you, not to you
  • Preview everything on a temporary URL before anything switches
  • Your old site stays live until you approve the cutover
  • 30-day money-back guarantee if it does not work out

Vercel alternative — questions answered

Free plan forever — no credit card

Start free — no card

Build a real, database-backed site with the AI Website Builder on the Free plan, or host your existing site on managed UK infrastructure from £9/mo. Fixed prices, and you own the code.

No card needed on the Free plan
30-day money-back on paid plans
Fixed GBP pricing — no usage bills