Where to Host Your Backend When Your Frontend Is on Vercel

Vercel is one of the best places to deploy a Next.js frontend. But most real apps also have parts that don't fit the serverless model: a queue worker, a WebSocket server, a scheduled job that runs for ten minutes, a Discord bot, a database. Here's how to split the app sensibly.

What Vercel does (and doesn't do)#

• Does: static assets on a global CDN, Server Components and SSR, Route Handlers and serverless functions billed per invocation and CPU.
• Doesn't: run an always-on server. Functions exist while a request is being handled.
• Database: Vercel Postgres is no longer available. New projects pick a Marketplace provider (Neon, Prisma Postgres, Supabase, AWS Aurora), each priced separately.
• Plans: Hobby is free for personal, non-commercial use, with hard usage caps. Pro is $20/month with $20 of usage credit included.

What needs a long-running host#

A clean split: frontend on Vercel, backend on a PaaS#

Browser ──▶ Vercel (Next.js frontend)
               │  fetch("https://api.myapp.com/…")
               ▼
          API service ──┬── PostgreSQL (DATABASE_URL)
          Worker service ┴── Redis queue (REDIS_URL)

On DockHosting, each box is a project:

1. API: Express, FastAPI, Django, Go or anything with a Dockerfile, deployed with dock deploy.
2. Worker: the same repository deployed as a second project with a different start command, for example node worker.js.
3. PostgreSQL + Redis: managed databases attached to both projects. DATABASE_URL and REDIS_URL are injected over a private network, so the database has no public port.

Wiring it to the frontend#

1. Point the frontend at the API with an environment variable in Vercel:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=https://api.myapp.com

2. Allow the frontend's origin in the API (Express example):

import cors from "cors";
app.use(cors({ origin: ["https://myapp.com", "https://myapp.vercel.app"] }));

3. Give the API its own domain. Add api.myapp.com as a custom domain on Hobby and up. HTTPS certificates are issued automatically.

Or keep it all in one place#

If you'd rather not split, a Next.js app also runs as a normal Node.js server, with no Vercel-specific features required. Deploy it with npm run build and npm start, or as a Docker image: see deploying Next.js with Docker. Then the frontend, API, worker and database all live next to each other.

Cost sketch#

For a small commercial app on DockHosting Hobby ($4/month): 1 GB memory shared across 3 projects (frontend or API, worker) and 2 managed databases (PostgreSQL + Redis), with daily backups and your own domain. Pro ($9) raises that to 10 projects, 6 databases and 3 GB. See pricing and the Heroku alternatives comparison for other options.

Related: Free backend hosting compared · Railway app alternatives