Compute Model

The fundamental unit of compute each cloud/hosting platform runs your code as.

AWS

Offers essentially every compute model available: raw virtual machines (EC2), containers (ECS/EKS/Fargate), and functions (Lambda) — you choose the level of abstraction rather than the platform choosing for you.

GCP

Similarly broad: Compute Engine for VMs, Google Kubernetes Engine for containers, Cloud Run for serverless containers, and Cloud Functions for individual functions.

Azure

Also broad: Virtual Machines, Azure Kubernetes Service for containers, Azure App Service for managed web apps, and Azure Functions for serverless.

Vercel

Deploys applications as a combination of static assets, serverless functions, and edge functions, automatically deciding the right compute target based on how a Next.js (or other framework) app is structured.

Cloudflare

Centers on Workers, V8-isolate-based functions that run at the edge with near-instant cold starts, a fundamentally different (and lighter-weight) unit than a traditional container or VM.

Netlify

Deploys static assets plus serverless and edge functions, similar in shape to Vercel’s model but usable with a broader range of frontend frameworks and static site generators.

DigitalOcean

Offers Droplets (VMs), a managed Kubernetes service, App Platform (a PaaS for containers/apps), and Functions (serverless), covering a similar spread to the hyperscalers at smaller scale.

Render

Runs long-lived web services and background workers as containers, alongside static site hosting and managed Postgres/Redis — a PaaS-style model without a raw VM option.

Fly.io

Runs applications as lightweight, hardware-virtualized VMs called Fly Machines that start in milliseconds, positioned as full application containers rather than short-lived functions.

Heroku

Runs applications in “dynos,” lightweight containers that scale horizontally, the original model that popularized the git-push PaaS pattern.