How HostStack compares
We wrote all twelve of these, so read them as such. What we have tried to do is make each one falsifiable: each page is signed and carries the month it was last checked, the feature tables say “no” where the answer is no, and every page carries a “When NOT to choose HostStack” section naming the cases where the other platform is the better buy.
The part that does not change across the twelve: HostStack runs on European infrastructure, operated by one Danish company, MICCI, on one EUR invoice. That is the whole product decision. If you need Singapore and Oregon, or an edge network in thirty cities, none of these comparisons ends in our favour, and the pages say so.
The twelve comparisons
- HostStack vs RenderFor teams on Render’s Starter tier where an EU-residency question has come up in a security review.
- HostStack vs RailwayFor teams who like the deploy experience but cannot forecast a usage-metered invoice.
- HostStack vs HerokuFor apps still on dynos after the free tier ended, wanting the same git-push workflow for less.
- HostStack vs VercelFor Next.js apps that have outgrown serverless functions and need a long-running backend.
- HostStack vs Fly.ioFor anyone operating Fly’s unmanaged Postgres themselves who would like backups to be someone else’s job.
- HostStack vs ScalewayFor teams already hosting in the EU, but assembling cloud building blocks they would rather not assemble.
- HostStack vs CoolifyFor self-hosters who like Coolify and are tired of being the person on call for the host it runs on.
- HostStack vs SupabaseFor teams who want Postgres and the app in front of it under one European company.
- HostStack vs NeonFor teams weighing serverless Postgres that scales to zero against always-on Postgres at a flat price.
- HostStack vs AivenFor teams choosing between two EU companies for Postgres, and wondering what the price difference buys.
- HostStack vs DigitalOceanFor App Platform teams paying for a database standby and asking where their data’s company sits.
- HostStack vs Clever CloudFor teams already set on a European PaaS, comparing two of them on price and Postgres.
At a glance: when each one is the better buy
What each platform is, and the cases its comparison page names where we would tell you to choose it over HostStack.
| Platform | What it is | Choose it over HostStack when |
|---|---|---|
| Render | A US PaaS with a Frankfurt region | You need regions outside Europe, or Render’s static-site CDN for a high-traffic site. |
| Railway | A PaaS billed on RAM and CPU usage | Your services scale to zero most of the time, or your customers are in the US. |
| Heroku | The original git-push PaaS, now in sustaining engineering | You need its HIPAA or PCI Shield runtimes, or VPC peering from Private Spaces. |
| Vercel | Serverless functions on a global edge | You need edge functions worldwide, or a global CDN in front of a marketing site. |
| Fly.io | Machines in many regions, managed Postgres from $38/mo | You run a multi-region app, need GPUs, or want raw machines to orchestrate. |
| Scaleway | A French full cloud you assemble yourself | You need IaaS, Kubernetes or bare metal, or a SecNumCloud-qualified provider. |
| Coolify | Open-source PaaS you install and operate | It is a homelab, the setup must be air-gapped, or running the platform is the point. |
| Supabase | Postgres as a backend-as-a-service | You use Supabase Auth, Storage, Realtime or the generated APIs. |
| Neon | Serverless Postgres with branching | The database is idle most of the day, or CI needs branches of production data. |
| Aiven | A Finnish managed-database platform on the cloud you pick | You need point-in-time recovery, read replicas, Kafka or ClickHouse, or a specific cloud. |
| DigitalOcean | A US cloud with App Platform and Managed Databases | Your users are outside Europe, or you need point-in-time recovery or VMs and Kubernetes too. |
| Clever Cloud | A French PaaS with its own Paris datacenter | You host health data in France (HDS), or your app needs more vCPU per euro. |
Going deeper
Most of the comparisons have a longer piece behind them. Leaving Vercel for a Next.js app is walked through step by step in deploying Next.js on European infrastructure; Postgres from Neon, Supabase and Scaleway is priced against ours in the managed PostgreSQL buyer’s guide; and Render, Railway and Heroku are set side by side in the European PaaS alternatives roundup. What our own Postgres does, and what it does not do yet, is on the managed Postgres page.
Whichever platform you are leaving, a move touches the same three things: your environment variables (env var docs, including importing a .env file), your database (managed databases), and the commands you run to do it (the CLI, or the TypeScript SDK to script it).
Already decided and just moving an app across? The migration guides carry the config diffs and the cutover order. Prices for everything above are on the pricing page.