Netlify Pros and Cons

Netlify’s simplicity and power are unmatched. Its seamless CI/CD integration makes deploying websites and web apps incredibly straightforward, even for beginners, making the ease of implementation outstanding. The intuitive dashboard, paired with preview links, has streamlined my workflow for frequent deployments. Netlify’s support team is responsive and helpful, providing clear solutions to issues, which adds to the overall positive experience. The platform’s reliability means we use it frequently for a variety of projects, from small prototypes to full-scale web apps. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

While Netlify is fantastic overall, the free plan has limitations on build minutes and bandwidth, which can be restrictive for scaling projects. The pricing for higher tiers can also feel steep for smaller teams or individual developers. Additionally, more advanced documentation for less common use cases would be helpful for more niche implementations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The feature to log in with our GitHub account makes it a lot easy to work with our files from GitHub and host our projects directly from GitHub. The website hosting features are also greatly personalised. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The interface it provides to work with is cluttered and overwhelming. Some updates can be made to improve on that to provide a client friendly workspace. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Our company needs to deploy fast and effectively to host our clients front-end digital user experiences. Netlify allows us to achieve this at scale with flexibility. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Plugins are a bit buggy sometimes which eats of the build time usage. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's easy to get started with Netlify, you get a lot of features even with the free plan. Forms work, Github integration works for basic sites. It has Let's Encrypt integrated, so getting SSL certificates is super easy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We've had some issues with Flutter web builds when deploying from Github, so we have to do manual builds which is not ideal. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The platform is easy to use and you have great flexibility. It is an open source project, so there is great potential for improvements in the future. Their static page scaling feature provides a convenient interface for editing our content. The ability to run the CMS without any backend server or service. It allows me to use Git as a backend service for my CMS, which reduces costs and increases simplicity for me and my clients. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The documentation was a bit difficult. Some features are missing compared to the full CMS. The authentication settings for the administrator are a bit confusing at times. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

As of May 2023 I am still impressed with how much you can get from Netlify for free. They integrate well with frameworks like next.js, supporting most/all features as they are released. Netlify functions are flexible, powerful, and available without the hassle of setting up AWS lambdas (which they end up running as IIRC). Edge functions, background functions, and ISR-style on-demand builder functions give me the tools I need to optimize our API and build performance.

I can craft an enterprise-grade solution in place for $0 - I don't even think they have my credit card. This makes things so much simpler and easier to try out, throw away, and eventually scale up.

Netlify's out-of-the-box experience, full feature set, and generous free tier make it my go-to for starting new projects.

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Netlify is easy to set up and works well with a lot of frameworks out of the box. Sites start out free which makes learning the platform easy and fun. They release new features regularly, keeping up with the current state of the web. Features like edge functions and (well cached) on-demand builders help to increase the performance and capabilities of the apps we build on the platform. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Update May 2023 - below is still accurate, and I still feel a little burned by it, but the issue is probably of little concern to new customers. When it happened, there was quite a fuss in the affected community, so I can only hope that the lessons learned stay with Netlify for a long time.

I don't have many other complaints

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Recently, Netlify released a change to their billing structure, along with changes to the deploy workflow which would reject git repo changes from any GitHub user not tied to a Netlify user. This had several implications, the worst of which was the breaking of our workflow for pretty much every site we had set up on Netlify. Furthermore, even if we did ransom out a paid account for each of our developers' GitHub accounts, the maximum number of those accounts was just 7. We have more than seven developers and they move around between many projects.

Netlify ultimately reversed this decision, after considerable community backlash, but the damage is done. Netlify used to be the cool upstart that had a knack for knowing what its developer community needed, now I can't trust them not to randomly screw us over in the name of profit. Every company needs to make money, and honestly, some of Netlify's services are probably undervalued; however, their recent play illustrates a deep lack of understanding of their users, and a propensity towards bait-and-switch tactics that have us seriously considering other services. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Netlify is easy to set up and good for static websites with small to medium user bases. It has many plugins which you can inject into your website to get faster performance analytics etc. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don't like the new UI of Netlify the previous one looks more elegant and professional but the new one looks somewhat childish to me. Also, it become more difficult to use now. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ability to automatically optimise assets for our project. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

netlify limiting the bandwidth and getting with a high price Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Netlify is everything you need to deploy a static site, whether HTML only or based on a framework like Hugo or Gatsby. Netlify has many additional services that can make a static website more dynamic like Netlify CMS, Identity, Forms, or Functions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The pricing is not as flexible as I would've hoped. The free plan is generous, but if you need anything more, you'll have to pay 20 USD per month, even if you need slightly increased build limits. Also, self-hosted GitLab or GitHub Enterprise instances are supported only on the business and enterprise plans. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Netlify allows me to deploy my frontend applications within a few clicks by connecting to version control or by uploading the source code. It requires no extra effort for me to configure pipelines or build commands, since it intelligently makes sense of most of it. At the same time, it is customizable in that it allows me to set environment variables, custom build commands and add ons like SSL. I also get a free subdomain with every site, and can connect domains I own and host them for free Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There are limits to the use cases that Netlify provides for hosting applications. It lacks almost any support outside static websites or Jam stack. It also has a few build limitations that can get sorta irritating at times, especially when you are a newbie and often make pushes Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.