GitLab Pages vs Vercel: which one fits your project?

This choice usually comes up for people already on GitLab who are deciding whether to keep deploys inside GitLab's own CI, or hand the frontend to Vercel for framework support and preview deploys that GitLab Pages doesn't offer natively.

GitLab Pages vs Vercel at a glance

	GitLab Pages	Vercel
Deploy method	CI pipeline via .gitlab-ci.yml	Git-connected, framework-aware build, preview URL per branch
Free tier	Free, tied to your GitLab account	Hobby tier, free and generous for personal/non-commercial use
Custom domain	Yes, free HTTPS	Yes, free HTTPS
Build/CI required	Yes, even a minimal CI file is required	Yes, automatic framework build on every push
Best for	Static/docs sites already on GitLab	Framework apps (Next.js and others) needing SSR or preview deploys

When to choose GitLab Pages

If your repo already lives on GitLab and the project is static or close to it, Pages keeps the whole pipeline — code, CI, and deploy — inside one platform, with no third-party account to connect and full control via the CI file itself.

When to choose Vercel

Vercel connects to GitLab repos as well as GitHub, so the Git host isn't a blocker — the real deciding factor is whether the project needs what Vercel is actually built for: server-rendered pages, API routes, and a preview URL generated automatically for every branch. For a framework app, especially Next.js, that pipeline is doing meaningful work.

If you just need to host static files

Both of these assume a Git repo behind every deploy, and both require some build step, even a minimal one. If your project is plain HTML/CSS/JS with no build at all, that's more infrastructure than the job needs. Flaash covers the narrower case directly — drag a folder or .zip into the browser and it's live on a flaash.live subdomain immediately, no Git, no CI file, no build config. The tradeoff is custom domains, which Flaash doesn't support yet — both GitLab Pages and Vercel offer them for free, which matters if you need your own domain from day one.

Frequently asked questions

Can Vercel deploy from a GitLab repository? Yes, Vercel supports GitLab, GitHub, and Bitbucket as Git providers.

Is GitLab Pages enough for a Next.js app? Not really — Pages serves static output, so a Next.js app relying on SSR or API routes needs a platform like Vercel that runs the framework's server side.

Which is simpler for a small static project? GitLab Pages, if you're already on GitLab and comfortable with a short CI file — Vercel's build pipeline is more setup than a plain static site typically needs.