Where Netlify gets complicated
Netlify's drag-and-drop deploy option is genuinely one of the simpler entry points among developer-focused hosts — that's real, and worth crediting. Where it gets harder to predict is pricing: since September 2025, Netlify has run on a credit-based system, where one shared monthly allowance (300 credits on the free tier) pays for deploys, bandwidth, and function usage all at once, at different rates for each. A production deploy costs 15 credits; bandwidth costs 20 credits per GB. That's not an intuitive number to plan around compared to a flat "100GB a month" limit.
Past the free tier, Netlify's own documentation and independent pricing trackers both note that credit costs and allocations have changed multiple times, which makes budgeting for a growing site harder than it needs to be for someone who just wants to host a client's finished website.
Cloudflare Pages
Cloudflare Pages solves the unpredictable-bandwidth problem directly — its free tier has no bandwidth cap at all, and commercial use is allowed with no restriction. The tradeoff is the same one that shows up across most developer-first hosts: deploying assumes a Git repository, which is an extra skill to pick up if you've never used version control.
Best for: anyone with some technical comfort who wants the most generous free bandwidth on this list.
Vercel
Vercel is worth a mention here too, though it swaps Netlify's credit confusion for a different tradeoff: predictable per-seat pricing ($20/user/month on Pro), but a free tier that explicitly excludes commercial use. It fits a similar audience to Netlify — frontend developers — more than it fits someone hosting a client's static site.
Best for: teams already comfortable with Git-based deploys who want simpler, flat pricing than Netlify's credit system.
A dedicated static host
sofast skips the credit-system complexity entirely — one flat price per plan, no shared allowance to track across deploys, bandwidth, and function usage, and no Git repository required to get started. For a static site with no server-side functions to run, that's the entire feature gap between Netlify and a dedicated static host closed.
Comparison table
How to choose
If uncapped bandwidth matters most and you're comfortable with Git, Cloudflare Pages is the strongest free option. If you want Netlify's drag-and-drop simplicity without the credit-system math, sofast gives you the same ease of use with pricing that doesn't shift meaning every few months.
Frequently asked questions
Not necessarily more expensive — just harder to predict, since one allowance covers deploys, bandwidth, and function usage at different rates, rather than one clear number like "100GB a month."
Not strictly — Netlify does offer a drag-and-drop deploy option. Where Git becomes useful is ongoing updates: without it, you're manually re-uploading your whole site folder every time something changes.
For uncapped free bandwidth, yes. The tradeoff is that Cloudflare Pages' setup assumes a Git repository from the start, without Netlify's simpler drag-and-drop alternative.
Netlify moved to credits in September 2025 to price bandwidth, builds, and compute through one unified system rather than separate limits — the tradeoff for that flexibility is a less intuitive number to plan around.
Netlify blocks further usage or prompts an upgrade rather than silently charging you — but on a busy month, a site can burn through the free allowance faster than a flat bandwidth number would suggest.
Some do offer flat, predictable plans instead of usage meters — worth checking specifically for that if unpredictable bills are your main concern moving away from Netlify.
Yes — since your site is static files (assuming it doesn't rely on Netlify-specific features like Netlify Functions or Forms), you can download or re-export those files and host them anywhere else the same way you originally uploaded them.
If your site was built with an AI tool and you're ready for pricing you don't have to do math on, here's exactly how to get it hosted.
