Hosting Models
PaaS
Platform as a Service runs your code from a git push without you touching servers, operating systems, or scaling config.
A PaaS takes your code and runs it. You push to git, the platform builds it, deploys it, and handles the servers, the OS, the load balancing, and usually the scaling underneath. You never SSH into anything. For teams that want to ship features instead of babysit infrastructure, that's the whole pitch.
Vercel is the reference for Next.js, with preview deployments that changed how teams review work. Netlify covers the same ground for static and Jamstack sites. Heroku pioneered the model, and Railway, Render, and Fly.io are the modern developer-first take. Each trades server control for developer speed.
The catch is economic, not technical. PaaS pricing is usage-based across bandwidth, function calls, and build minutes, so a traffic spike arrives as an invoice. Fine at hobby scale, fine at enterprise scale with a contract, awkward in the growing middle where teams often migrate to a flat-price VPS.
Go deeper
- Where to Host a Next.js App in 2026Vercel, a PaaS, or your own VPS: the real trade-offs for hosting Next.js, and how rendering mode changes the answer.
- Where to Host a Node.js API in 2026PaaS, VPS, or serverless for an Express/NestJS/Fastify backend: what each actually costs, where each breaks, and the memory ceiling nobody warns you about.