It is time to abandon Vercel and Next.js

For a long time, Vercel and Next.js were my default. Whenever I started a new project, whether for myself or for a client, I didn’t hesitate. I trusted the stack. I deployed more than 100 projects with them. The developer experience was smooth, the documentation clear, and the ecosystem inspiring. In many ways, Vercel made modern web development feel effortless.

What happened

Recently, Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel and one of the leading voices behind Next.js, shared a public photo with the Prime Minister of Israel, celebrating the “greatness” of Israel and its role in the future of AI. This is not acceptable for me when the world is seeing in Gaza and Palestine—where countless civilians are losing their lives and entire communities are being devastated.

I feel like I can’t look at them the same way.

Technology doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

A company’s leadership reflects values and priorities. And when those values align themselves so openly with political power in such a fragile and tragic moment, it becomes impossible for me to separate the technical excellence of Vercel from the implications of that alignment.

My Projects, and Beyond

I’ve had over 100 projects hosted on Vercel, from experiments to serious work. Transitioning away will not be easy. It will take time, and effort, and sometimes money. But I can accept that, because for me, ethics matter as much as developer experience.

And they will not miss me, even though I raised my voice for them a lot.

However, I think this will affect at least the following groups:

• Products created with the frameworks owned or sponsored by the company.

  This is the case of Next.js, SvelteKit, Nuxt or Astro. Let’s not forget that Vercel is sponsoring a lot of these projects, and that is how they can afford to be free. In this regard, I look forward to seeing how the community reacts to this, and if some of the maintainers of these projects, like Rich Harris will speak up or not (will update on this as soon as I know).

• Developers and companies that value ethics and social responsibility.

  I believe many will reconsider their relationship with Vercel, especially in light of recent events. I think we will see a user exodus in the coming months, as more people become aware of the situation and decide to take a stand. Among those currently using Vercel are Netflix, Stripe, Adobe, Ebay, Unity, Pinterest or Nintendo, among others.

So at the moment of this writing a user exodus is already happening and companies like Replit, Cloudflare, Netlify, Digital Ocean, Fly, or Render are benefiting from it.

And this will be also my case. I don’t share this as a call for boycotts, or to judge anyone else’s decision. But I cannot personally recommend Vercel or Next.js as my default choice anymore.

Conclusion

I don’t regret the years I spent with Vercel and Next.js. They shaped me as a developer and gave me a lot of fun. But things have changed. I cannot close my eyes to the bigger picture, to the suffering happening right now, and to the implications of where our projects live.

Staying using Vercel would feel like complicity and legitimizing apartheid regimes.

For me, Vercel was the default. But not anymore.