[HN Gopher] What Does Vercel Do?
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       What Does Vercel Do?
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2023-05-10 17:21 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (vercel.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (vercel.com)
        
       | topthendown wrote:
       | Very clear explanation
        
       | tiffanyh wrote:
       | Geez this sounds complicated.
       | 
       | What ever happened to just S/FTP your files to the web server.
        
         | manuelmoreale wrote:
         | Still a viable option and I'd bet is how a solid % of the
         | websites on the web are published/updated.
        
         | internetter wrote:
         | The explanation is terrible and long winded. Here it is dumbed
         | down:
         | 
         | Vercel resells servers with additional stuff ontop. When you
         | commit code to a git repository, vercel (optionally) runs a
         | build step (like you would on a workstation). It takes the
         | resulting files (HTML, CSS, JS, ect), and sends them to many
         | servers around the world. When a user requests your site, it
         | chooses the closest one. Those servers are also capable of
         | running small scripts when information is requested from them,
         | to add dynamic content. Metaframeworks (some combination of a
         | backend (like Django) and frontend (like React) framework) can
         | generate this dynamic code.
         | 
         | --- End explanation, que personal thoughts) ---
         | 
         | I quite like this "serverless" methodology, for a variety of
         | reasons. While it's a paradigm shift, it makes my life so much
         | easier. For simple sites, I just write my static files, commit
         | them, and spend... I suppose less than 30 seconds clicking
         | buttons to set it up forever. I never need to worry about
         | server maintenance, uptime, or security. I never need to think
         | about updating remote files. It's also incredibly cheap for my
         | hobby projects, as I'm not renting a server that duplicates the
         | work of every other one on the rack.
        
           | igouy wrote:
           | ? cue
        
       | jbc1 wrote:
       | With the exception of a Postgres offering (they went with SQLite)
       | and what sounds like some sort of built in CMS, Cloudflare has
       | all of this. I don't mean in a glue together your own Dropbox way
       | but in a nicely integrated verify your GitHub profile, pick a
       | repo, get automatic deployment and serverless functions that just
       | work way. The same way Vercel is being described.
       | 
       | My understanding is that Vercel is built on top of Cloudflare and
       | charges a significant premium.
       | 
       | Presumably people are paying that premium for the unspecified
       | "nifty performance optimizations" for Nextjs and not for the CMS
       | and Postgres. Has anyone gone from Cloudflare to Vercel that can
       | speak to the differences they found?
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-10 23:02 UTC)