Compare Render and Vercel free tiers side by side. Pricing, limits, change history, and risk assessment for developers.

Render vs Vercel

Side-by-side free tier comparison. Data verified through 2026-08-26.

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Verdict

Both Render and Vercel offer free tiers. Render provides "Hobby" while Vercel offers "Hobby".

Render caution discovered 2026-09-02 restructured

CategoryCloud Hosting
TierHobby
Verified2026-08-15
Changes2 recorded
Free web services (512 MB RAM, less than 1 CPU), free PostgreSQL (256 MB RAM, 30-day expiry), free Redis (25 MB). 5 GB bandwidth/month included then $0.15/GB, 500 build minutes/month. Up to 25 services, 2 environments per project. Auto-deploy from Git

Vercel caution discovered 2026-09-07 reduced

CategoryCloud Hosting
TierHobby
Verified2026-08-26
Changes3 recorded
Superseded: As of 2026-09-07, vercel.com/pricing reads: Hobby $0 /mo. Includes 1M Edge Requests, 100 GB Fast Data Transfer, 1 GB Blob Storage, 5K Image Transformations, 1M Function Invocations, 4 hours Active CPU, and 360 GB-hrs Provisioned Memory, with overages billed at various rates. We are not publishing our stored Vercel terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-07, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

Pricing Change History

Render

restructured discovered 2026-09-02 · effective date unknown high impact
The free tier now includes compute options with varying RAM and CPU, and the limits for PostgreSQL and Key Value stores have been updated. Bandwidth for the Hobby tier is now 5GB included per month, then $0.15 per GB.
Source ↗
reduced effective 2025-09-01 low impact
Free web services now spin down after 15 minutes of inactivity (previously 30 minutes). Cold starts take 30-60 seconds. Free tier remains but with faster sleep times
Source ↗

Vercel

reduced discovered 2026-09-07 · effective date unknown high impact
The Hobby plan still exists, but several limits have been adjusted or are now pay-as-you-go. Edge Requests are now 1M included / month, then starting at $2 per 1M. Fast Data Transfer is 100 GB / month included, then starting at $0.15 per GB. Blob Storage is 1 GB / month included, then $0.023 per GB. Image Transformations are 5K / month included, then starting at $0.05 per 1K. Function Invocations are 1M / month included, then starting at $0.60 per 1M. Active CPU is 4 hours / month included, then starting at $0.128 per hour. Provisioned Memory is 360 GB-hrs / month included, then starting at $0.0106 per GB-hr.
Source ↗
restructured effective 2026-02-01 medium impact
New Pro projects now default to Turbo build machines (30 vCPUs, 60GB memory) at $0.126/minute — 9x more expensive than Standard machines ($0.014/min). Pro plan still $20/seat/month with $20 usage credit, but real-world build costs for moderate teams can hit $400+/month. Standard machines still available but must be manually selected.
Source ↗
restructured effective 2026-01-01 medium impact
Pro plan moved to credit-based model ($20/mo credit pool), Hobby plan metrics renamed and restructured — bandwidth→Fast Data Transfer, serverless split into Active CPU + Provisioned Memory, Blob Storage and Image Transformations added
Source ↗

Watch Both Vendors for Pricing Changes

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