Website Hosting Options

Website hosting is the service that makes your website accessible on the internet. There are several options available depending on your needs:

Vercel (Managed Hosting)

Vercel provides a seamless platform for deploying and hosting websites, particularly those built with Next.js and other modern frameworks 1. With Vercel, you get:

• Zero-configuration deployments - Connect your Git repository and deploy automatically
• Global CDN - Your site is served from edge locations worldwide for fast loading
• Preview deployments - Every pull request gets its own preview URL
• Serverless functions - API routes and server components run as serverless functions
• Analytics and monitoring - Built-in performance tracking and error reporting

Self-Hosting Options

If you prefer to self-host your Next.js application, you have several options 2:

1. Node.js Server - Deploy to any provider that supports Node.js

   npm run build npm run start

2. Docker Container - Package your application as a Docker image

   docker build -t nextjs-app . docker run -p 3000:3000 nextjs-app

3. Static Export - Generate static HTML/CSS/JS files that can be hosted anywhere

   next build next export

API Hosting

If you're specifically looking to host APIs, Vercel offers several advantages 3:

• Fluid compute model - Handles multiple concurrent requests on a single instance
• Cross-region failover - Built-in high availability
• Cold-start mitigation - Bytecode caching and automatic pre-warming
• Easy caching and streaming - HTTP-native features work out of the box

Getting Started with Vercel

To deploy a website on Vercel:

1. Push your code to a Git repository (GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket)
2. Import your project on Vercel
3. Configure build settings if needed
4. Deploy

Your site will be live on a vercel.app domain immediately, and you can connect a custom domain.