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Hosting & infrastructure
Vercel
Frontend cloud hosting for deploying web apps quickly from code or AI-built prototypes.
Frontend cloud hosting for deploying web apps quickly from code or AI-built prototypes.
Vercel is a cloud platform for deploying frontend applications: websites, static sites, serverless functions, and full-stack JavaScript apps. You connect a code repository, or push code directly, and Vercel builds and hosts it, giving you a live URL without requiring you to set up your own servers.
It has become a common publishing target for AI-assisted app builders. When you build something with an AI coding tool, Vercel is often the platform that turns that code into a working website anyone can visit.
In Episode 005, Vercel came up twice in the same conversation. Alec Saluga pointed out that Lovable can publish an app straight to the web without you manually setting up a separate GitHub repository and Vercel deployment. Justin Novak then showed the payoff: the Milk and Cookies bakery prototype, built with AI in one hour, sitting live on a Vercel app URL that anyone could open in a browser.
We keep Vercel in the stack because it is the fastest bridge between an AI-generated app and a real website you can send someone. Plenty of AI builders can produce an app; Vercel is what turns that output into a URL that survives a browser refresh. The practical takeaway: you rarely need to touch Vercel directly. Most AI app builders either publish to it automatically or hand you a one-click deploy option, so the tool matters less than knowing it's the thing making your prototype a live link.
Vercel itself is a developer tool. Real, hands-on usage involves GitHub repositories, build settings, and environment variables, and that side of it is genuinely technical. But if you're building with AI tools like Lovable that publish straight to Vercel, you may never see any of that. The AI or the app builder handles the deployment, and what lands in your hands is just a live URL. Worth understanding what it does, even if you never log in yourself.
Genuine substitutes for Vercel that we've also run on stage:
Yes, Vercel has a free tier. Free tier for personal projects; paid plans for teams, scale, and commercial usage.
Free tier for personal projects; paid plans for teams, scale, and commercial usage.
Justin Novak and Alec Saluga used it in Episode 005 for deploying the Milk and Cookies AI-built app to a live URL.
Vercel itself is a developer tool. Real, hands-on usage involves GitHub repositories, build settings, and environment variables, and that side of it is genuinely technical. But if you're building with AI tools like Lovable that publish straight to Vercel, you may never see any of that. The AI or the app builder handles the deployment, and what lands in your hands is just a live URL. Worth understanding what it does, even if you never log in yourself.
Tools we've also used live that can stand in for Vercel: DigitalOcean, GitHub.
| Category | Hosting & infrastructure |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Free tier for personal projects; paid plans for teams, scale, and commercial usage. |
| Free tier | Yes |
| Used live in | Episode 005 |
| Operator(s) | Justin Novak, Alec Saluga |
| Website | vercel.com |
On AI4NTP, every tool is shown live by a real operator. These are the people who demoed Vercel on stage.
Founder and host of AI4NTP. He sold his first company from his college dorm room, and as a fractional CMO has helped scale multiple businesses past $50M in ARR.
A former B2B salesman with no technical background who self-taught AI. He builds and deploys AI-driven marketing and websites, and has grown a following of over 15,000 teaching AI adoption.
Explore other tools we've demoed live at AI4NTP:
See tools like Vercel set up live, step by step, on AI4NTP, or get hands-on help putting it to work.