Two different kinds of hosting
Ask where to host a web app and most people say Vercel. For a Next.js app that renders on the server, they are right. For a PHP app with a database, scheduled jobs and email, a flat-priced hosting account does the same job for less, and with less to wire together. This page puts the two side by side.
Vercel's prices and limits below were read from vercel.com on 10 October 2026. Check its site for changes since.
The short answer
These are not two versions of the same thing. Vercel runs your code as functions on a worldwide network. Gravity Host gives you a web server, a database and a mail server on one UK account.
Side by side
Quotation marks show Vercel's own wording. Each Vercel row links to the page it came from.
| What you need | Vercel | Gravity Host |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price for a business | Pro: $20 a month, about £15, with one deploying seat and $20 of usage credit included. Extra deploying seats are $20 a month each. Vercel Pro plan | £45 for the first year, then £75 a year for 15 GB. One account, no charge per person. |
| A free plan | Hobby is $0 and is “restricted to non-commercial personal use only”. Fair use guidelines | No free plan. Hosting has a 30-day money-back guarantee. |
| How usage is charged | Pro includes 1 TB of data transfer and 1 million CDN requests a month. Functions, builds and other resources draw on the $20 credit; “once you have used your monthly credit, Vercel bills additional usage on-demand”. | Not metered. A 1 TB bandwidth allowance, with no count of requests, builds or function time. |
| Controlling the bill | Spend management notifies you at a set amount, $200 by default, about £151. “Setting a spend amount does not stop usage on its own”; you can switch on pausing your projects when it is reached. Spend management | The yearly price is the bill. Nothing is added for traffic. |
| Languages | Node.js, Bun, Python, Rust, Go, Ruby, Wasm, Edge and containers are official runtimes. PHP is a community runtime, not an official one. Runtimes | PHP 5.6 to 8.5 as the main language, including Laravel and Symfony. Node.js 18 and 20 and Python 3.9 to 3.12 through cPanel's app setup tools. What we tested |
| How your code runs | As functions that start on request and stop afterwards: 300 seconds by default and up to 800 on Pro, with a read-only filesystem and a 4.5 MB request and response limit. Function limits | As an ordinary web server with a writable disk. Your files, uploads and sessions stay where you put them. 2 CPU cores, 2 GB of memory and 85 requests at the same instant per account. |
| Database | From other providers through the Vercel Marketplace, such as Neon, Supabase and Upstash, on each provider's own plan. Storage | MariaDB 11.4 (MySQL-compatible) included, on the same server as the app. As many databases as fit in your storage. No PostgreSQL or Redis. |
| Email at your domain | “Vercel does not provide a mail service for domains purchased with or transferred into it.” Domains | Unlimited mailboxes and forwarders included, sharing your plan's storage. Or keep Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. |
| Deploying | Push to Git and Vercel builds and deploys it, with a preview deployment for each change on every plan. | Upload by SFTP, File Manager or cPanel Git. No build service and no automatic previews; keep a staging subdomain if you want one. |
| Scaling | Automatic, up to 30,000 concurrent function instances on Hobby and Pro. | Fixed resources on one server. Move up a storage size at any time; the CPU and memory stay the same. |
| Where it runs | Static files from a worldwide CDN. Functions run in one region by default, Washington, D.C. (iad1), which you can change. | UK servers. |
| Scheduled jobs | Cron jobs that call a function: once a day on Hobby, down to once a minute on Pro. Cron jobs | Cron jobs in cPanel that run any script or command on your account. |
| Support | Email support on Pro. Pricing | Message or ticket with a UK person, Monday to Friday, for the server and the hosting. |
The fixed part of the bill
Vercel Pro is priced per person who deploys. Gravity Host is priced per account. Neither bar includes a domain name.
Vercel Pro: $20 a month platform fee with one seat, plus $20 a month for each extra deploying seat. Gravity Host: the 15 GB plan at its renewal price.
Gravity Host is £45 in the first year. Vercel's figure includes $20 of usage credit each month; usage beyond it is billed on top, and viewer seats are free. Pound figures use $1 = £0.756, the rate on 9 October 2026, and exclude any tax Vercel adds. Vercel Hobby is $0 for non-commercial personal projects.
On Vercel a database and email come from other companies with their own prices, so an app that needs them has those subscriptions beside the platform fee. On Gravity Host both are in the £75.
The other way round: Vercel's price buys automatic builds, previews and a worldwide network, none of which we offer. If your app needs those, they are worth paying for.
What a hosting account is
A typical app on a function platform is assembled from parts: the platform, a database provider, an email provider, sometimes a queue and a file store. Each has a dashboard, a bill and its own limits.
A Gravity Host account is one server environment with all of those inside it:
We run our own apps this way, including Invoicer and Best eBikes UK. See our web application hosting platform for each piece and its limit.
It does not have to be one or the other
You can keep the front end on Vercel and still need somewhere for the rest. That works well here:
Moving off Vercel entirely? A site that builds to static files can be copied across once, or kept in step every hour with GitHub Sync. An app that depends on Vercel's functions would need rewriting first, and we will tell you so before you order.
Common questions
Its Hobby plan costs nothing, and Vercel restricts it to non-commercial personal use: “All commercial usage of the platform requires either a Pro or Enterprise plan.” Advertising a product or service, or being paid to build the site, counts as commercial in Vercel's fair use guidelines. Pro has a $20 a month platform fee, about £15, which includes one seat and $20 of usage credit.
Not officially. Vercel's official runtimes are Node.js, Bun, Python, Rust, Go, Ruby, Wasm, Edge and containers. PHP is listed as a community runtime, maintained outside Vercel. If your app is PHP or Laravel, a hosting platform with PHP built in, such as Gravity Host, is the simpler route.
For PHP and Laravel apps that need a database, email and scheduled jobs, yes, at a fixed £75 a year. It is not an alternative for Next.js server rendering, edge functions or automatic preview deployments.
Only as a static export: build it, then upload the output or connect it with GitHub Sync. If the app relies on server rendering, server actions, middleware or image optimisation at request time, host it on Vercel. That is what Vercel is built for.
Yes. Keep a Next.js front end on Vercel and put the parts Vercel does not provide here: a PHP API with its database, scheduled jobs, and email at your domain. Point a subdomain such as api.yourapp.co.uk at Gravity Host and leave the main domain where it is.
Not email: “Vercel does not provide a mail service for domains purchased with or transferred into it.” Databases come from other companies through the Vercel Marketplace, such as Neon, Supabase and Upstash, each with its own pricing. On Gravity Host, MariaDB databases and mailboxes are part of the plan.
On Vercel it scales up automatically and usage beyond your monthly credit is billed on demand; you can set a spend amount and have projects paused when it is reached. On Gravity Host the price does not change, and the app has a fixed 2 CPU cores, 2 GB of memory and a 1 TB bandwidth allowance. If you expect sudden, very large peaks, Vercel is the safer choice.
By message or ticket, with a UK person, Monday to Friday. We look after the server, databases, email, DNS and SSL. Your application code is yours to maintain; we will tell you what the server logs show. Most everyday jobs you do yourself in cPanel.
If your app fits
15 GB hosting is £45 for your first year, then £75 a year. Tell us what your app is built with and we will say plainly whether it belongs here or on Vercel.
Machine translation by Google. English is the original — please read prices and hosting terms in English before you buy.
A guide only — you pay in pounds. We show the conversion so you know roughly what it costs; your bank sets the rate on the day.