Vercel vs shared hosting: what modern hosting actually changes
If your site is a few pages that change a handful of times a year and it loads quickly today, shared hosting is fine and moving it will not earn you anything. Hosting is the small number here: the build is what costs, from step 01 at EUR 600 to 900 for a single-page landing up to step 03 at EUR 1.500 to 3.500 for a business website, and Care is EUR 100 to 300 a month for updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes on whichever host you land on.
The real difference is not speed, it is what happens when you change something. On shared hosting a change is a file you upload over the live site. On Vercel a change is a new version that is built, given its own URL, and swapped in only when you say so.
The case for staying where you are
Shared hosting is a flat fee, and that fee can include your mailboxes, a control panel, FTP access and a MySQL database. Your WordPress install and its plugins run there. If something breaks you can call a support line and speak to somebody.
A migration is not free of risk either. DNS has to be moved, certificates reissued, mail records copied exactly, redirects preserved. If nothing about the site is changing, that work buys you a different invoice and the same website. Spend the money on the pages instead.
Stay put if all of this is true: the site is a brochure, the pages load fast enough on a phone, one person changes them, and your email lives on the same account. None of that is a reason to be embarrassed.
What modern hosting actually changes
Deploying stops being an event
You push to the repository, a build runs, and a new immutable version goes live. The previous version is still there, so rolling back is a click rather than a hunt for last week's backup. On shared hosting, deploying means overwriting files on the running site, and undoing it means having taken a backup first.
Every change gets a URL before it is live
Each branch gets its own preview deployment. You can open the new pricing page on a real URL, on your phone, and approve it before it replaces the old one. Review stops being a conversation about screenshots.
There is no server to look after
No PHP version to upgrade, no operating system patches, no disk filling up quietly. The failure mode moves from a server that got old to a build that failed, which is loud, visible and fixable.
A traffic spike stops being a risk
Pages are served from a network close to the visitor and functions start on demand. On shared hosting you sit on a box with other tenants under CPU limits, and a mention in the press is what takes you offline.
The bill changes shape
Shared hosting is a fixed fee. Vercel is a free tier for personal projects, then a paid plan priced per seat plus usage. Usage-based means an unusual month can cost more than a normal one, which is worth knowing before it happens rather than after. Set a spend limit on day one.
What it does not change
- Your email. Vercel does not host mailboxes. Mail stays with your current provider, or moves to Google or Microsoft, and the records simply point elsewhere. Forgetting this is an easy way to break a migration.
- WordPress and PHP. They do not run on Vercel. A WordPress site either stays where it is, or the content moves to a headless CMS and the front end is rebuilt, which is step 02 or step 03 work.
- Your database. It lives with a managed provider rather than on the web host, and you own it.
- Your rankings. Google measures loading, interactivity and layout stability in the field, so a genuinely slow site can gain from a faster host. A site that is already fast gains nothing. Changing hosts is not an SEO strategy.
Side by side
| Vercel | Shared hosting | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploying a change | Push to the repository, build runs, version goes live | Upload files over the running site |
| Rolling back | Promote the previous version | Restore a backup, if one exists |
| Reviewing before launch | A preview URL per branch | A staging subdomain, if you set one up |
| Not hosted here | Can be included | |
| WordPress and PHP | Not supported | Supported |
| Database | Managed provider, yours | MySQL on the same account |
| Traffic spikes | Absorbed by the network | Limited by the box and its neighbours |
| Cost shape | Seats plus usage | Flat fee |
Where hosting sits against the build
The ladder is on packages, and the short version: step 01 is EUR 600 to 900 for a single-page landing, step 02 is EUR 900 to 1.500 for a mini-site, step 03 is EUR 1.500 to 3.500 for a business website, step 04 is EUR 3.500 to 7.500 once you need a login, a dashboard, an API, a CRM, payments or a chatbot. If ranking is the actual goal behind the hosting question, an SEO foundation is a one-off of EUR 450 to 750 and does more for it than a change of host. How we build, and why we build in Next.js, is on design and engineering and on Next.js development in Amsterdam.
How a move runs
- Look at what is actually running. The stack, the mail records, the redirects, and who holds the domain. That last one is the part that waits on you, so find the login before we start.
- Scope and a fixed quote. A lift of a site that stays as it is, or a rebuild. The quote follows the scope, never the other way round.
- Build or port. If the front end is being rebuilt, 2 to 3 weeks at step 02, 3 to 6 weeks at step 03.
- Cut over. Lower the DNS time to live first, copy the mail records exactly, move the site, check the redirects against the old URL list.
- Hand over. The code, the repository and the database, which are yours.
When to spend less
- Do not move for the sake of it. If nothing about the site is changing, a migration is an expense with no return.
- Measure before you blame the host. A page carrying unoptimised images and a stack of plugins is slow on any host. Fixing the images is cheaper than moving the site.
- Leave email where it is. Moving the website and moving the mailboxes are two projects. Doing both in one weekend puts your mail at risk for no reason.
- Bundle it with a rebuild. If you are rebuilding anyway, the new site has to be deployed somewhere regardless, so the hosting decision costs you almost nothing extra.
Questions we get asked
Will moving to Vercel make my site faster?
Possibly. Serving pages from a network close to the visitor removes the round trip to a single box, and a build step lets images and scripts be prepared in advance rather than assembled on every request. If the bottleneck is a heavy page rather than the server, moving it changes very little. We measure the current site before promising anything.
Do I lose my email if the website moves?
No, as long as the mail records are copied before the cutover and the time to live is lowered in advance. Mail and web are separate records pointing at separate services, and they do not have to travel together.
Can my WordPress site just move to Vercel?
Not as it stands. PHP and the plugin ecosystem do not run there. The two honest options are leaving WordPress where it is, or moving the content into a headless CMS and rebuilding the front end, which lands at step 02 or step 03 depending on the page count.
Who pays the hosting bill, and whose account is it in?
That is agreed per project. We can host the site as part of the arrangement. What does not change is ownership: the code, the repository and the database are yours.
Tell us what your site runs on now and what annoys you about it, and we will say plainly whether moving is worth the money. Get in touch.
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JP Studio designs and builds websites, storefronts and product interfaces.