Hosting stopped being "a place to put files"
Deployment platforms now bundle CI/CD and CDN infrastructure: atomic deploys, automated builds, decoupled build-and-host, instant cache invalidation, and increasingly edge compute. That lets a team ship a fast, global site without a dedicated DevOps function, but it also means the platform choice is entangled with the framework and the rest of the stack, not made in isolation.
How we decide with you
- Framework fit. Some pairings are obvious (Next.js on Vercel); others trade convenience for control or cost.
- Compliance & data residency. An EU data-residency requirement or a Microsoft/AWS mandate rules options in or out before anything else.
- Team confidence. The pipeline has to let your team ship without fear: preview environments, rollbacks, observability.
- What it costs at your traffic. Platform bills bend at scale. We model the shape of yours before you commit, and say plainly when your own cloud is the cheaper home.
Deploying to your own AWS, Azure, GCP, or CDN contract is a first-class path, not a compromise. The platforms below are grouped by the decision they serve. Full write-ups cover the ones most teams shortlist; the rest are here in brief. Databases and application backends sit one layer over, in integrations.