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Netlify lost my trust a year ago when they tried to increase our company's pricing more than 10x. (We were paying ~$200/mo, then they tried to force us into a $

Netlify lost my trust a year ago when they tried to increase our company's pricing more than 10x. (We were paying ~$200/mo, then they tried to force us into a $2,500+ plan because we were 1 seat over their self-serve threshold.) From my perspective, they were adding features just to find ways to grow revenue. (I get it, you don't have a huge moat by simply hosting static sites.) But their features seemed very out of touch with our needs, and I can't imagine we were the only ones. As a Gatsby user on a large-scale website, I'm disappointed to see this acquisition because I'll now constantly be worried they'll try to pull a similar stunt with Gatsby. Since then, I've been using Next.js + Vercel on side projects, and now with this acquisition, I don't see that changing going forward. Trust and loyalty is everything in the developer community. It's hard to gain and easy to break. Hopefully other developer-focused alternatives will keep this first and foremost in their head so we don't end up in this situation with other platforms down the road.

bradgessler 4y ago
Is there a “back to the basics” company or offering for hosting static sites that is essentially what Netlify was when it launched?
- simantel 4y ago
  GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Render.com's static hosting, probably others?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tmslnz 4y ago
  We use and swear by Opalstack.com, which is made by some of the same peeps that worked for the may-as-well-be-defunct Webfaction. Full SSH access, generous limits, very active community.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  Just get a $5 digital ocean droplet and throw nginx on it. All the static hosting in the world at your fingertips.
  - mox1 4y ago
    And all of the infrastructure management for free!!!!
    - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
      There is hardly any, if you are hosting static dirs. It's literally one file, the nginx.conf.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Caddy is even simpler.
    - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
      I agree. I am just used to nginx I guess.
    - satvikpendem 4y ago
      Coolify is even simpler IMO after using Caddy. https://coolify.io https://coolify.io
      - code_biologist 4y ago
        If by simpler you mean there is literally zero content on the page: $ http https://coolify.io/ HTTP/1.1 200 OK CDN-Cache: HIT CDN-PullZone: 355073 CDN-RequestCountryCode: US CDN-RequestId: 196ca62f96058... CDN-Status: 200 CDN-Uid: bb1c6a05-... Connection: keep-alive Content-Length: 0 Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2023 20:46:54 GMT Server: BunnyCDN-ASB1-925
        satvikpendem 4y ago
- pgm8705 4y ago
  Digital Ocean's App Platform looks to still do basic static sites at a reasonable rate (free for up to 3 sites). I've been a very happy App Platform customer, although not using static sites.
- yawnxyz 4y ago
  surge.sh is very very back to basics, and is amazing for small-ish static sites
- lancefisher 4y ago
  I’ve been happy with Google’s Firebase Hosting. It’s confusing branding, but almost a drop in replacement. https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting
bluSCALE4 4y ago
Sounds like they behaved exactly how you expected them to. You can't get upset because the threshold was passed.
- corywatilo 4y ago
  IIRC they had recently added a user cap on self-serve customers which was new and led to this. The new pricing deck they sent was "It will be $3,500/mo, but until the end of the month, you can get it for only $2,500!" (Pricing approx.) $2,500/mo to host a static site is ludicrous.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    I don't get it, why can't these companies just limit the number of people with credentials for the seat-licensed website?
  - maccard 4y ago
    > $2,500/mo to host a static site is ludicrous. But it's not to host a static site, it's one click CD, multiple environments, global CDN, and a few more things. I'm not going to say how mu h it is worth, but if you just want a static site with a domain you can do it for free/sub $10 on many many providers.
    - CharlesW 4y ago
      > But it's not to host a static site, it's one click CD, multiple environments, global CDN, and a few more things. What can you do for $2,500 on Netlify you can't do on Vercel for $20/user/month?
      - sebmellen 4y ago
        SSO is probably the only thing. Other than that, no idea. Netlify pulled the same stunt with us and we left. They must have burned many bridges by now.
      - maccard 4y ago
jakelazaroff 4y ago
> From my perspective, they were adding features just to find ways to grow revenue. Why else would they add features?
- corywatilo 4y ago
  Try to solve user problems? (Maybe they were, just not ours.)
  - 0x457 4y ago
    Only reasons to solve problems: - keep existing paying clients - get new paying clients
    - comprev 4y ago
      You missed: - get existing clients to pay more
lynndylanhurley 4y ago
They did this to us as well. And not only this, but they blocked our ability to push new releases until we opted into the new plan. And this literally happened on the day of a major release for our biggest client. It felt like we were being held at gunpoint. We called them and begged them to give us an extension so we could perform the release, and their sales rep treated us like we were the irresponsible ones for not reading the emails they had sent us carefully enough. We've since moved to Vercel and will never use Netlify again because of the way they managed this.
sholladay 4y ago
Vercel has betrayed my trust and expectations perhaps more than any other provider. They advertised open standards and then did a bait-and-switch to proprietary systems. They also broke our automated deployment pipeline out of the blue and called it a feature, not a bug. They don’t seem to care much about security, either. [1] If you want “old reliable” that works how you expect it to, with the ease of use of a modern platform, and one that won’t break the bank, my pick would be Cloudflare or Render. 1. https://github.com/vercel/vercel/issues/856 https://github.com/vercel/vercel/issues/856
- Rauchg 4y ago
  > They advertised open standards and then did a bait-and-switch to proprietary systems I'd love more detail on this. We have made major investments in open source and ensuring Vercel is an open platform. ◆ The Vercel Build Output API exposes all the underlying primitives of the platform for every framework to take advantage of (https://vercel.com/blog/build-output-api https://vercel.com/blog/build-output-api) ◆ We've diligently invested in standard-compliant API signatures. Serverless Functions adopted the Node.js request / response standard (as opposed to e.g.: AWS Lambda inventing a new one) and Edge Functions adopt the Web standard. We've joined WinterCG to foster this standardization effort (https://wintercg.org/ https://wintercg.org/) ◆ We've always invested in API compatibility between local development, self hosting and Vercel infrastructure (e.g.: `vc dev` is open source https://github.com/vercel/vercel https://github.com/vercel/vercel). ◆ We're continuing to invest here. Next.js and Vercel build outputs are always getting more detailed, we're exploring support for running build outputs locally (`vc start`) as an open source offering, etc. > they don’t seem to care much about security We added support for your feature request, and security remains the top priority of the company. Some recent ships: ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/access-tokens-can-now-be-scoped-to-teams https://vercel.com/changelog/access-tokens-can-now-be-scoped... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/share-environment-variables-across-your-team-and-projects https://vercel.com/changelog/share-environment-variables-acr... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/expiration-dates-now-available-for-access-tokens https://vercel.com/changelog/expiration-dates-now-available-... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/protected-preview-deployments-available-on-all-plans https://vercel.com/changelog/protected-preview-deployments-a... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/increased-security-with-view-only-permissions https://vercel.com/changelog/increased-security-with-view-on... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/enhanced-security-with-new-api-scopes-for-integrations https://vercel.com/changelog/enhanced-security-with-new-api-...

bradgessler 4y ago

Is there a “back to the basics” company or offering for hosting static sites that is essentially what Netlify was when it launched?

simantel 4y ago
GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Render.com's static hosting, probably others?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tmslnz 4y ago
We use and swear by Opalstack.com, which is made by some of the same peeps that worked for the may-as-well-be-defunct Webfaction. Full SSH access, generous limits, very active community.
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
Just get a $5 digital ocean droplet and throw nginx on it. All the static hosting in the world at your fingertips.
- mox1 4y ago
  And all of the infrastructure management for free!!!!
  - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
    There is hardly any, if you are hosting static dirs. It's literally one file, the nginx.conf.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Caddy is even simpler.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
    I agree. I am just used to nginx I guess.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    Coolify is even simpler IMO after using Caddy. https://coolify.io https://coolify.io
    - code_biologist 4y ago
      If by simpler you mean there is literally zero content on the page: $ http https://coolify.io/ HTTP/1.1 200 OK CDN-Cache: HIT CDN-PullZone: 355073 CDN-RequestCountryCode: US CDN-RequestId: 196ca62f96058... CDN-Status: 200 CDN-Uid: bb1c6a05-... Connection: keep-alive Content-Length: 0 Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2023 20:46:54 GMT Server: BunnyCDN-ASB1-925
      - satvikpendem 4y ago
pgm8705 4y ago
Digital Ocean's App Platform looks to still do basic static sites at a reasonable rate (free for up to 3 sites). I've been a very happy App Platform customer, although not using static sites.
yawnxyz 4y ago
surge.sh is very very back to basics, and is amazing for small-ish static sites
lancefisher 4y ago
I’ve been happy with Google’s Firebase Hosting. It’s confusing branding, but almost a drop in replacement. https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting

bluSCALE4 4y ago

Sounds like they behaved exactly how you expected them to. You can't get upset because the threshold was passed.

corywatilo 4y ago
IIRC they had recently added a user cap on self-serve customers which was new and led to this. The new pricing deck they sent was "It will be $3,500/mo, but until the end of the month, you can get it for only $2,500!" (Pricing approx.) $2,500/mo to host a static site is ludicrous.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  I don't get it, why can't these companies just limit the number of people with credentials for the seat-licensed website?
- maccard 4y ago
  > $2,500/mo to host a static site is ludicrous. But it's not to host a static site, it's one click CD, multiple environments, global CDN, and a few more things. I'm not going to say how mu h it is worth, but if you just want a static site with a domain you can do it for free/sub $10 on many many providers.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    > But it's not to host a static site, it's one click CD, multiple environments, global CDN, and a few more things. What can you do for $2,500 on Netlify you can't do on Vercel for $20/user/month?
    - sebmellen 4y ago
      SSO is probably the only thing. Other than that, no idea. Netlify pulled the same stunt with us and we left. They must have burned many bridges by now.
    - maccard 4y ago

jakelazaroff 4y ago

> From my perspective, they were adding features just to find ways to grow revenue. Why else would they add features?

corywatilo 4y ago
Try to solve user problems? (Maybe they were, just not ours.)
- 0x457 4y ago
  Only reasons to solve problems: - keep existing paying clients - get new paying clients
  - comprev 4y ago
    You missed: - get existing clients to pay more

lynndylanhurley 4y ago

They did this to us as well. And not only this, but they blocked our ability to push new releases until we opted into the new plan. And this literally happened on the day of a major release for our biggest client. It felt like we were being held at gunpoint. We called them and begged them to give us an extension so we could perform the release, and their sales rep treated us like we were the irresponsible ones for not reading the emails they had sent us carefully enough. We've since moved to Vercel and will never use Netlify again because of the way they managed this.

sholladay 4y ago

Vercel has betrayed my trust and expectations perhaps more than any other provider. They advertised open standards and then did a bait-and-switch to proprietary systems. They also broke our automated deployment pipeline out of the blue and called it a feature, not a bug. They don’t seem to care much about security, either. [1] If you want “old reliable” that works how you expect it to, with the ease of use of a modern platform, and one that won’t break the bank, my pick would be Cloudflare or Render. 1. https://github.com/vercel/vercel/issues/856 https://github.com/vercel/vercel/issues/856

Rauchg 4y ago
> They advertised open standards and then did a bait-and-switch to proprietary systems I'd love more detail on this. We have made major investments in open source and ensuring Vercel is an open platform. ◆ The Vercel Build Output API exposes all the underlying primitives of the platform for every framework to take advantage of (https://vercel.com/blog/build-output-api https://vercel.com/blog/build-output-api) ◆ We've diligently invested in standard-compliant API signatures. Serverless Functions adopted the Node.js request / response standard (as opposed to e.g.: AWS Lambda inventing a new one) and Edge Functions adopt the Web standard. We've joined WinterCG to foster this standardization effort (https://wintercg.org/ https://wintercg.org/) ◆ We've always invested in API compatibility between local development, self hosting and Vercel infrastructure (e.g.: `vc dev` is open source https://github.com/vercel/vercel https://github.com/vercel/vercel). ◆ We're continuing to invest here. Next.js and Vercel build outputs are always getting more detailed, we're exploring support for running build outputs locally (`vc start`) as an open source offering, etc. > they don’t seem to care much about security We added support for your feature request, and security remains the top priority of the company. Some recent ships: ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/access-tokens-can-now-be-scoped-to-teams https://vercel.com/changelog/access-tokens-can-now-be-scoped... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/share-environment-variables-across-your-team-and-projects https://vercel.com/changelog/share-environment-variables-acr... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/expiration-dates-now-available-for-access-tokens https://vercel.com/changelog/expiration-dates-now-available-... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/protected-preview-deployments-available-on-all-plans https://vercel.com/changelog/protected-preview-deployments-a... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/increased-security-with-view-only-permissions https://vercel.com/changelog/increased-security-with-view-on... ◆ https://vercel.com/changelog/enhanced-security-with-new-api-scopes-for-integrations https://vercel.com/changelog/enhanced-security-with-new-api-...