Agent hosting platforms compared (2026)
Eight hosts set beside each other on the things that decide whether an AI agent can turn a file into a URL inside one turn. Vercel reaches furthest. NudgeHost asks for the least before the first call.
Figures last verified 16 October 2026
- 2 of 8publish without an account
- 7 of 8publish an MCP server
- 1 of 8carries the API and MCP on a free plan
An agent that has produced something needs a URL for it before the turn ends. NudgeHost gives an AI client four tools over Streamable HTTP, so it can publish an HTML page and hand the link back inside the same conversation. The four REST endpoints and the tool schemas are written out in the API reference.
Vercel is the strongest entrant here. Their remote MCP server covers projects, deployments, logs and analytics, and their changelog states that it can now deploy code. That is closer to publishing from inside a conversation than anything else in the table.
What separates the two is the ground underneath a publish. NudgeHost needs no account before the first publish, and its free plan runs the API and the MCP server with no credit meter behind a publish. Vercel wants an account and a sign-in from an approved client first.
What each one needs before it can start
The two questions that decide most of it, across all eight. Everything else is in the cards below.
| Platform | What has to exist before the first call | What reaching the API or MCP server takes |
|---|---|---|
| NudgeHost | Nothing. No project, no repository, and no account before the first publish | The free plan, at 2 keys and 20 requests a minute |
| Vercel | An account, and a sign-in from an approved client. The deploy tool creates the project if it does not exist | Their MCP server is on all plans, and every tool needs an OAuth grant from an approved client |
| Netlify | A project. Drop makes a temporary one for a dragged folder, behind a temporary password and claimed within an hour | Their free plan is a hard limit of 300 credits a month |
| GitHub Pages | An account, a repository and a commit | The REST API reaches repositories and Pages |
| Cloudflare Pages | An account and a project name, and no repository. Their prerequisites say to run the build command first, because Direct Upload uploads prebuilt assets | An OAuth sign-in to their API MCP server, or a Cloudflare API token sent as a bearer token. A functions folder deploys only through the Wrangler CLI |
| Static.app | An account, and a website on the plan | Any account, the 7-day trial included. After the trial, publishing needs Starter at $6 a month, or $5 a month billed annually at $60 a year |
| Tiiny.host | An account | Solo, their second paid tier. The entry paid plan is $9 a month, or $5 a month billed annually at $60 a year |
| Linkyhost | An account | Business, from $300 a year |
The full answer, one card each
Open the ones you are weighing. A question a vendor publishes nothing on is left out rather than answered for them.
NudgeHostLeast to startRead 16 October 2026
- What has to exist before the first call
- Nothing. No project, no repository, and no account before the first publish
- An MCP server
- Four tools over Streamable HTTP, on an OAuth 2.0 protected resource publishing RFC 9728 metadata
- What it reaches, and who may connect
- Create an upload URL, complete the upload, share text, list links. Any client that speaks Streamable HTTP and OAuth 2.0
- How a publish is made
- A signed URL from the API, the bytes by PUT, then a complete call. Text goes inline through
share_textand comes back as a link in one call - What the input can be
- Any file's bytes, or text inline up to 2MB of UTF-8. A filename ending .html renders in the browser, and one ending .md shows as formatted text
- What reaching the API or MCP server takes
- The free plan, at 2 keys and 20 requests a minute
- What is metered behind a publish
- Nothing per publish. 20 API requests a minute is the free ceiling
- How long a signed-out publish lives
- 7 days, on 3 links at 25MB each, claimable later by signing up
VercelReaches furthestRead 16 October 2026
- What has to exist before the first call
- An account, and a sign-in from an approved client. The deploy tool creates the project if it does not exist
- An MCP server
mcp.vercel.com, remote and OAuth, on the MCP Authorization and Streamable HTTP specifications- What it reaches, and who may connect
- Documentation search, project and deployment management, deployment log analysis and Web Analytics queries. It registers a domain after you approve a quote, and buys no credits, subscriptions or add-ons. Fourteen approved clients, among them Claude Code, ChatGPT, Codex CLI, Cursor and VS Code with Copilot, and only reviewed and approved ones may connect
- How a publish is made
- Their changelog states that the MCP server can now deploy code
- What the input can be
- Inline file contents, up to 300 files at 3 MiB each and 4 MiB in all, or a Git source
- What reaching the API or MCP server takes
- Their MCP server is on all plans, and every tool needs an OAuth grant from an approved client
- How long a signed-out publish lives
- Nothing publishes signed out
NetlifyRuns the agent for youRead 16 October 2026
- What has to exist before the first call
- A project. Drop makes a temporary one for a dragged folder, behind a temporary password and claimed within an hour
- An MCP server
- Yes, with agent documentation at
netlify.ai - What it reaches, and who may connect
- Agent Runners that execute Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Google Gemini and OpenCode from the dashboard, where a run that changes a file generates a Deploy Preview
- How a publish is made
- A deploy through their API, Drop or the CLI, and the CLI can deploy without an account
- What the input can be
- A file digest, a ZIP, or a dragged folder or zip
- What reaching the API or MCP server takes
- Their free plan is a hard limit of 300 credits a month
- What is metered behind a publish
- Credits. 15 a production deploy, 20 a GB of bandwidth, 2 per 10,000 web requests, against 300 free a month. A project at its limit pauses, and their FAQ says one project over its limit pauses all projects on the account
- How long a signed-out publish lives
- One hour, and the deploy has to be claimed inside it
The head-to-head is how NudgeHost compares to Netlify Drop.
GitHub PagesBeside the codeRead 16 October 2026
- What has to exist before the first call
- An account, a repository and a commit
- An MCP server
github/github-mcp-server, remote and local, the remote one generally available since 4 September 2025- What it reaches, and who may connect
- Repositories, issues, pull requests, Actions and code scanning, from the remote server or a local one
- How a publish is made
- A commit, then the Jekyll pipeline or an Actions workflow
- What the input can be
- Files committed to a repository
- What reaching the API or MCP server takes
- The REST API reaches repositories and Pages
- What is metered behind a publish
- Free on public repositories with GitHub Free. Published sites up to 1GB, a soft limit of 10 builds an hour, a soft bandwidth limit of 100GB a month, and deployments that time out after 10 minutes
- How long a signed-out publish lives
- Nothing publishes signed out
The head-to-head is the NudgeHost and GitHub Pages comparison.
Cloudflare PagesFree to serveRead 16 October 2026
- What has to exist before the first call
- An account and a project name, and no repository. Their prerequisites say to run the build command first, because Direct Upload uploads prebuilt assets
- An MCP server
mcp.cloudflare.com/mcp, plus guides for building your own remote MCP server over Streamable HTTP- What it reaches, and who may connect
- More than 2,500 Cloudflare API endpoints and the developer documentation through the API server, and their documentation server exposes
search_cloudflare_documentationandmigrate_pages_to_workers_guide - How a publish is made
- Direct Upload, through Wrangler or by dragging onto the dashboard through Workers and Pages, Create application, Get started, Drag and drop your files, a project name and Deploy site. It serves at
PROJECT_NAME.pages.dev. Their docs say a Direct Upload project cannot switch to Git integration later and needs a new project instead - What the input can be
- Prebuilt assets. Wrangler takes a single folder and refuses a ZIP, and drag and drop takes either. A single asset stops at 25 MiB
- What reaching the API or MCP server takes
- An OAuth sign-in to their API MCP server, or a Cloudflare API token sent as a bearer token. A
functionsfolder deploys only through the Wrangler CLI - What is metered behind a publish
- Static asset requests, the ones that invoke no Function, are free and unlimited on both plans. A Pages Function counts against the Workers quota of 100,000 requests a day on Free at 10 ms of CPU, resetting at midnight UTC. Free carries 500 builds a month, one concurrent build, a 20 minute build timeout, 20,000 files a site (100,000 on paid with
PAGES_WRANGLER_MAJOR_VERSION=4), 100 custom domains a project and uncapped preview deployments - How long a signed-out publish lives
- Nothing publishes signed out
The head-to-head is NudgeHost vs Cloudflare Pages.
Static.app7-day trialRead 16 October 2026
- What has to exist before the first call
- An account, and a website on the plan
- An MCP server
- On every plan and the 7-day trial
- How a publish is made
- Through the API or the MCP connector, from a ZIP or file by file
- What the input can be
- A ZIP up to 100 MB, or single files. The trial holds one website at 50MB
- What reaching the API or MCP server takes
- Any account, the 7-day trial included. After the trial, publishing needs Starter at $6 a month, or $5 a month billed annually at $60 a year
- What is metered behind a publish
- A 7-day trial with a free subdomain and SSL, then a paid plan
- How long a signed-out publish lives
- Nothing publishes signed out
The head-to-head is how NudgeHost compares to Static.app.
Tiiny.hostAPI from SoloRead 16 October 2026
- What has to exist before the first call
- An account
- An MCP server
- On every plan, free included, beside a REST API from Solo
- How a publish is made
- Through the MCP server on any plan, or the API listed from Solo
- What reaching the API or MCP server takes
- Solo, their second paid tier. The entry paid plan is $9 a month, or $5 a month billed annually at $60 a year
- How long a signed-out publish lives
- Nothing publishes signed out
The head-to-head is NudgeHost vs Tiiny.host.
LinkyhostAPI on BusinessRead 16 October 2026
- What has to exist before the first call
- An account
- An MCP server
- None. A read-only REST API on Business
- How a publish is made
- In the browser uploader. The Business API only lists links
- What reaching the API or MCP server takes
- Business, from $300 a year
- How long a signed-out publish lives
- Nothing publishes signed out
The head-to-head is the NudgeHost and Linkyhost comparison.
Connecting a client
At revision 2026-07-28 the transport is stateless, with no initialize handshake. Clients on the earlier revisions 2025-11-25 and 2025-06-18 can still open with initialize, and they get no session id back. Every call carries its own credential, and one sent without gets 401 before the body is read.
{
"mcpServers": {
"nudgehost": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://www.nudgehost.com/api/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer ${NUDGEHOST_API_KEY}"
}
}
}
}{
"mcpServers": {
"nudgehost": {
"url": "https://www.nudgehost.com/api/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer ${env:NUDGEHOST_API_KEY}"
}
}
}
}[mcp_servers.nudgehost]
url = "https://www.nudgehost.com/api/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "NUDGEHOST_API_KEY"curl -X POST https://www.nudgehost.com/api/mcp \
-H "Authorization: Bearer nh_sk_REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_OWN_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "MCP-Protocol-Version: 2026-07-28" \
-H "Mcp-Method: tools/call" \
-H "Mcp-Name: list_links" \
-d '{
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"id": 1,
"method": "tools/call",
"params": {
"name": "list_links",
"arguments": { "limit": 10 },
"_meta": {
"io.modelcontextprotocol/protocolVersion": "2026-07-28",
"io.modelcontextprotocol/clientCapabilities": {}
}
}
}'Vercel’s MCP documentation carries a last-updated date of 15 September 2026. Every other vendor figure was read from the pages listed on its card on 16 October 2026, and NudgeHost figures come from the current plan definitions.
Which one to reach for
NudgeHost
When a file has to become a URL now and nothing should have to exist first. It publishes signed out, and the free plan then carries 2 API keys with no credits counted against a publish.
Vercel
When the agent's work is code and the account is already there. Their MCP server reaches further than anything else in this table, and their changelog says it can deploy.
GitHub Pages
When the artifact belongs in a repository anyway, and a commit, a build and a ten minute deployment ceiling are steps worth taking.
Six of the platforms above have a page of their own here, linked from their cards, or you can see how NudgeHost compares one at a time.
Frequently asked questions
Which of these can an agent publish through without an account?
NudgeHost and Netlify Drop. NudgeHost's website uploader publishes signed out, while its REST API and MCP server need a free account, because each call carries an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Netlify's anonymous deploy has to be claimed within an hour.
Which platform has the most capable MCP server?
Vercel. Theirs covers projects, deployments, logs and analytics, and their changelog states that it can now deploy code. The NudgeHost server is four tools for one job, turning a file or a block of text into a public link.
What does a publish cost on each of them?
Nothing on NudgeHost's free plan, which counts no credits against a publish. Netlify spends 15 of its 300 free monthly credits on a production deploy. Each card above gives the rest.
Which plan does the API start on?
The free one on NudgeHost. Static.app includes it on every plan and its trial, and Tiiny.host lists it from Solo, their second paid tier. Linkyhost puts a read-only API on Business. The table above gives each price.
What happens when a free plan runs out?
On Netlify, one project over its limit pauses all projects on the account. GitHub Pages calls its build and bandwidth limits soft. NudgeHost refuses calls above 20 requests a minute and leaves every published link serving.
See for yourself
The free plan is genuinely free. Try it before you decide.