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Goodbye Vercel | Hello Dokploy
Like many React developers, I’ve always leaned toward Next.js as my go-to React-based framework. Thanks to its tight integration with Vercel, deploying a Next.js app was as simple as pushing to Git.
But lately, Vercel has introduced several limitations on their free tier:
- Private Git repositories now require a paid plan
- There’s a time limit on serverless API routes
- Additional restrictions that make the platform less appealing for indie devs and hobbyists
To be clear, I don’t blame Vercel — businesses need to make money. But it’s simply not the path I want to follow.
So I began exploring open-source alternatives, and that’s when I found Dokploy — a powerful, self-hosted platform that offers nearly all the features of Vercel, and in some cases, even more.
In this post, I’ll walk you through:
- How I use Dokploy to deploy my web apps
- How I host my databases (MongoDB, SQL, PostgreSQL)
- How I self-host services like search engines and RSS readers
