Vercel

Vercel is a cloud platform for building and deploying web applications. Vercel is the company behind Next.js, and Next.js projects deploy to Vercel with little configuration, though Vercel supports many other frameworks too. A project connects to a Git repository, and every push builds and deploys automatically.

Each branch or pull request gets its own preview deployment with a unique URL, so changes can be reviewed on a live copy before they reach production. Vercel serves sites through a global network and runs server code as functions that scale with traffic.

What Vercel handles

• Automatic builds and deployments from Git
• Preview deployments for every branch or pull request
• Global delivery of static and server-rendered pages
• Functions for server code, API routes and webhooks
• Environment variables per environment
• Custom domains with HTTPS

Why preview deployments help clients

A preview link lets a client see a change, such as a new page or a redesigned section, on a working copy of the site before it goes live. Feedback happens on the real thing instead of a screenshot. Once approved, the same build is promoted to production.

Things to plan for

Vercel pricing depends on the plan and on usage such as function execution and bandwidth, so high-traffic or compute-heavy applications should be estimated in advance. Secrets belong in environment variables, never in code. For some long-running jobs or databases, a separate service is a better fit than serverless functions.

When Vercel fits

Vercel fits Next.js marketing sites, headless storefronts and web applications where fast deploys and preview links matter. Applications with heavy background processing or specific hosting requirements may run better in containers on other infrastructure.