landerv0.4.0
sign in$ deploy
[compare · Vercel · Hobby · Pro · Enterprise]

Lander vs Vercel.

Vercel is shared serverless on Vercel-managed infrastructure. Lander is per-customer Fargate on your-or-our AWS. Free plan with commercial use, WAF on every tier, in-app Claude builder.

Vercel is the dominant Next.js hosting platform. They've built an excellent developer experience around serverless functions, edge runtime, and preview deploys. If you only ship Next.js and don't need security/compliance hooks, Vercel is fast and frictionless.

Lander is different in three concrete ways: (1) every customer runs in their own AWS VPC + Fargate task — no shared serverless, no noisy-neighbor cold starts; (2) AWS WAF + OWASP managed rules + AI Bug Hunter ship on every plan including Free — Vercel gates WAF at the Enterprise tier ($20K+/yr); (3) Lander's Free plan permits commercial use — Vercel's Hobby tier prohibits commercial use, forcing any side-project that monetizes onto Pro at $20/seat.

Both platforms support push-from-GitHub, custom domains, auto-SSL, and preview environments (Pro+). The trade-off: Vercel is faster to first deploy for a vanilla Next.js app; Lander is more honest about pricing and gives you real isolation for the same price tier.

[differences · side-by-side]
[feature]
[lander]
[vercel]
Free plan
$0 — 3 static sites, 100 GB egress, commercial use OK
$0 — Hobby tier, commercial use prohibited
↳ Vercel ToS §6: Hobby is for non-commercial use
Entry-level paid
$25/mo — 1 dynamic Fargate + 50 GB
$20/seat/mo — Pro tier
↳ Vercel charges per seat, Lander per account
Top tier
$200/mo — 2 dynamic + 1 TB + 75 Claude turns
Custom — Enterprise tier (~$20K/yr starting)
↳ Vercel hides Enterprise pricing
WAF + OWASP rules
Included on every plan
Enterprise tier only
↳ Vercel's docs confirm
AI security scanner
AI Bug Hunter — every deploy
Not available
↳ Lander differentiator
Compute model
Per-customer Fargate (0.25 vCPU, 0.5 GB RAM)
Shared serverless (Lambda) + Edge Functions
↳ Cold start on Lander is 100ms-2s; Vercel is sub-100ms but shared
Static-first detection
Auto-routes static to S3+CloudFront (~$0.50/site)
Always serverless
↳ Lander cost advantage on static
Per-customer isolation
Yes — own VPC, Fargate, ALB
Shared multi-tenant
↳ Compliance impact for regulated workloads
BYO AWS account
On Team tier
Not available
↳ Vercel hosts on their AWS only
In-app AI builder
Claude Sonnet 4.6, 20 turns/mo on Pro
v0 (separate product)
↳ Different generation paradigms
Custom domains
Hobby+
Pro+ on Hobby has 1 limit
↳ Functionally equivalent
Preview deploys
On roadmap (Q3 2026)
Built-in
↳ Vercel advantage
[pick · lander · when]
  • →You're building a commercial side project on free tier
  • →You need WAF / OWASP rules without paying Enterprise prices
  • →You want real AWS isolation for compliance (HIPAA-adjacent, SOC 2)
  • →You want a Claude/AI builder integrated into your deploy workflow
  • →You want to BYO AWS account so the bill is yours, not Vercel's
[stick with · vercel · when]
  • →You only ship Next.js and want zero-config preview deploys
  • →You need Vercel's edge-network globally distributed runtime (Lander is single-region today)
  • →You're already invested in Vercel's ecosystem (KV, Postgres, Blob)
  • →You're using v0.dev as your primary AI design tool
[migrating from vercel → lander]
  1. 01Add a Dockerfile to your Next.js repo with `output: 'standalone'` (most Vercel apps work without modification)
  2. 02Sign up at lander.host/onboard, install the GitHub App, pick the same repo
  3. 03Import env vars from your Vercel project — Lander's import flow accepts a paste-dump from `vercel env pull`
  4. 04Point your custom domain CNAME from `cname.vercel-dns.com` to `<slug>.app.lander.host` once you've verified the Lander deploy works
[FAQ]
Q. Does Lander support Next.js the same way Vercel does?Lander supports Next.js via Docker containers with `output: 'standalone'`. Server actions, App Router, Pages Router, ISR, and middleware all work. Edge Runtime functions need to be converted to Node runtime — that's the main porting friction. The full guide is at lander.host/deploy/nextjs.
Q. Why is Lander cheaper for static sites than Vercel?Lander auto-detects static sites (no Dockerfile, has index.html) and routes them to S3 + CloudFront — about $0.50/month per site for the storage + CDN. Vercel always uses serverless functions, which costs more per request. For static-only sites this means Lander's Free plan can host 3 of them indefinitely while Vercel charges if you exceed Hobby limits.
Q. Can I migrate from Vercel without downtime?Yes. Deploy to Lander first (gets you a `<slug>.app.lander.host` URL), verify it works, then update your custom domain CNAME from cname.vercel-dns.com to point at Lander. DNS propagates in ~5 minutes; Vercel and Lander serve in parallel during that window.
[other comparisons]
lander vs netlify →lander vs railway →lander vs render →lander vs fly.io →lander vs cloudflare pages →

5 minutes from clone to live URL.

free plan · commercial use OK · real AWS underneath$ try lander → free plan