Vercel
Created
Reviewedbyfl
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PHP on the frontend cloud.
Vercel is a frontend cloud where PHP runs only through a community runtime. fortrabbit is an alternative built for PHP as a first-class citizen.
About Vercel
Vercel is a serverless platform for frontend frameworks and JavaScript functions. PHP is not officially supported. It runs through vercel-php, a community runtime that executes PHP inside Vercel's Node-based functions, Composer and all. One myth worth killing: that runtime is not dead. It is actively maintained and tracks PHP up to 8.5. But it rests on one community maintainer, not a platform promise.
Vercel is a fine home for a Next.js or SvelteKit frontend. For a PHP backend it is a workaround. The serverless function limits apply, and the PHP support lives or dies by one person's free time, not a roadmap.
Why fortrabbit
Running PHP on Vercel means leaning on a community shim to bridge a platform that was never built for it. A fun experiment. A shaky base for something in production.
fortrabbit treats PHP as the first-class citizen it is not on Vercel. Native Composer builds, MySQL, persistent storage, PHP version switching, Git-push deploys. The tidy setup pairs them: a JavaScript frontend on Vercel, a PHP API on fortrabbit, each doing what it was actually built for.