Netlify vs Fly.io

At a Glance

Netlify

Fly.io

Netlify

Fly.io

No features listed.

Netlify

Pros

Build plugins and the function ecosystem give you a lot of flexibility to customize the CI/CD pipeline without managing servers+147
Forms with spam protection and file uploads work out of the box without any backend code — great for landing page MVPs+132
Split testing and feature flags for gradual rollouts are built into the platform without needing a separate service+108
The UI is more intuitive than Vercel's for non-Next.js frameworks and works well with Astro, Nuxt, and SvelteKit+94

Cons

Build times on free tier can be slow and concurrent builds require a paid plan — CI/CD pipelines on free are a single-lane road

Hosting

Vercel vs Netlify vs Cloudflare Pages

Hosting

Netlify vs Cloudflare Pages

Hosting

Vercel vs Netlify

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Fly.io

Pros

Run any Docker container globally close to users with Anycast routing — true multi-region with just a fly.toml config file+163
Persistent volumes and long-running processes make it suitable for stateful apps that serverless platforms can't handle+148
Machines API lets you spin up ephemeral containers programmatically — great for running user-submitted code safely+127
The free allowance is enough to run two small apps indefinitely, which is great for hobby projects and side businesses+112

Cons

The CLI-first experience has a steep learning curve compared to Vercel or Railway — the mental model of machines and apps takes time to internalize+141
Networking between services, volumes, and private networking can behave unexpectedly and debugging requires deep platform knowledge+124
Documentation quality is inconsistent — some features are covered well but others have sparse or outdated guides+97
Cold starts when a machine scales from zero are longer than serverless alternatives at around 2-5 seconds+82