The hosting landscape clarified in 2026. Three major buckets; each fits a workload shape. This post is the practical comparison.
The shapes
| Type | Best for | |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare (Workers, D1, R2, Durable Objects) | Edge-first | Globally-distributed apps, low-latency, Hono / TS-first |
| AWS (EC2, EKS, Lambda, RDS) | Full control | Custom requirements, GPU, mature integrations |
| GCP (Cloud Run, GKE, Cloud SQL) | Cleaner UX than AWS | GCP-native shops |
| Vercel | Next.js-optimized | Marketing sites, Next.js apps |
| Fly.io / Railway / Render | Container-friendly serverless | Small-mid startups |
| Supabase / Firebase | BaaS | Mobile-backend, fast prototypes |
Cloudflare for backend
Workers + D1 + R2 + Durable Objects + Queues = a real backend stack. Per-request pricing; no idle cost.
Best for:
- Globally-distributed reads.
- TypeScript-first (Hono, libsql, Drizzle).
- Per-tenant Durable Objects.
- Low-traffic apps (free tier covers them).
Worst for:
- CPU-heavy (Workers have CPU time limits).
- Large memory (128 MB default).
- AWS-native integrations.
See Cloudflare Workers + D1 + Durable Objects .
AWS for backend
EC2 / ECS / Fargate / EKS. Mature. Expensive.
Best for:
- Existing AWS investment.
- GPU / specialized hardware.
- Complex networking (VPC peering, Direct Connect).
- Large enterprise compliance.
Worst for:
- Cost at small scale.
- Operational complexity for small teams.
For Kubernetes on AWS .
Vercel for backend
Vercel is great for Next.js apps. Zero-config deploy, edge functions, server actions. For backend-only services (no Next.js): Vercel is overpriced and overkill.
Best for:
- Next.js sites and apps.
- Designers / developers wanting deploy without ops.
Worst for:
- Heavy backend logic.
- Pure API services (use Cloudflare or Fly).
- Anything where bandwidth costs matter (Vercel egress is expensive).
Fly / Railway / Render
Container-first deploys. Like Heroku but modern.
Best for:
- Run a Dockerfile; get a URL.
- Predictable pricing (fly.io: $1-30/month for many apps).
- Multi-region without K8s.
Worst for:
- Massive scale.
- Specific cloud-native integrations.
Cost comparison
For a typical small SaaS (1M req/month, 100 GB data, 1 TB egress):
- Cloudflare: ~$20/month (Workers + D1 + R2 + bandwidth free).
- Fly.io: ~$30/month (small VM + Postgres + bandwidth).
- AWS Lambda + RDS: ~$200/month.
- AWS Fargate + RDS: ~$300/month.
- Vercel + Vercel Postgres: ~$200/month.
For larger workloads (10M req/month, 1 TB data, 10 TB egress):
- Cloudflare: ~$200/month.
- Fly.io: ~$300/month.
- AWS Lambda + RDS: ~$2000/month.
- AWS Fargate: ~$2500/month.
- Vercel: ~$5000/month (egress kills you).
Cloudflare is dramatically cheaper at most scales. AWS earns its cost on specialty workloads.
Lock-in
| Lock-in level | |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Mid (Durable Objects, D1 are Cloudflare-only) |
| AWS | Mid (managed services tie you in) |
| Vercel | High (Next.js-tied) |
| Fly / Railway | Low (just Docker) |
Cloudflare’s vendor-neutral pieces (Workers running plain TypeScript, R2 = S3 compat) are portable. Durable Objects aren’t.
For SQLite at the Edge Turso is the portable alternative to D1.
Decision matrix
| Scenario | Pick |
|---|---|
| Greenfield TS backend, low-mid scale | Cloudflare Workers + D1 |
| Greenfield Python backend, low-mid scale | Fly.io Machines |
| Next.js site / app | Vercel |
| Big enterprise on AWS already | AWS |
| GPU / ML inference | Modal / Banana / dedicated AWS |
| Multi-region from day one | Cloudflare or Fly |
| Cheapest possible for a side project | Fly.io free tier or Cloudflare free tier |
What I’d ship today
For a new SaaS in 2026:
- Cloudflare Workers + Hono for the API.
- Postgres at Neon / Supabase (managed, cheap, scales).
- Cloudflare R2 for blobs.
- Cloudflare D1 or Turso for tenant data (per-tenant SQLite).
End-to-end: $20-100/month for the first 100k users. Move to AWS / dedicated only when something specifically demands it.
Read this next
- Cloudflare Workers + D1 + Durable Objects
- Kubernetes in 2026
- Cloud Cost Optimization in 2026
- Serverless in 2026
If you want my decision matrix as a flowchart, it’s at rajpoot.dev .
Building something AI-, backend-, or data-heavy and want a second pair of eyes? I do consulting and freelance work — see my projects and ways to reach me at rajpoot.dev .