prev vs Netlify: Choosing the Right Preview Environment Tool

Netlify and prev both offer preview deployments, but they serve different audiences and project types. This comparison helps you decide which tool fits your workflow.

What Netlify Does

Netlify is a full-featured web hosting platform primarily built for frontend and JAMstack applications. It offers continuous deployment from Git, serverless functions, edge handlers, forms, and — relevant to this comparison — deploy previews for pull requests.

Netlify Strengths

• All-in-one hosting: Deploy, host, and manage your production site on one platform
• Git-based workflow: Automatic deploys on every push, previews on every PR
• Edge network: Global CDN for static assets with edge functions
• Built-in features: Forms, identity/auth, serverless functions, split testing
• Free tier: Generous free plan for static sites and small projects

Netlify Limitations

• Frontend-focused: Designed primarily for static sites and JAMstack; backend support is limited to serverless functions
• Platform lock-in: Features like Netlify Functions, Edge Functions, and Forms tie you to their ecosystem
• No Docker support: You can't deploy arbitrary Docker containers
• Build constraints: Build times and runtime environments are managed by Netlify's pipeline
• Preview scope: Deploy previews only work for projects already hosted on Netlify

What prev Does

prev is a dedicated preview environment tool that works with any web project, regardless of where it's hosted in production. You run prev from your terminal or CI/CD pipeline, and your project is deployed to an isolated cloud container with a unique URL.

prev Strengths

• Framework-agnostic: Works with any language or framework — Node.js, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Rust, .NET, or Docker
• No hosting lock-in: Use prev for previews regardless of where your production app lives (AWS, GCP, your own servers, etc.)
• Docker-native: Deploy any Dockerfile as a preview environment
• CLI-first: One command to deploy from anywhere — local machine, CI/CD, scripts
• Flexible TTL: Set custom expiration times from hours to days

prev Limitations

• Preview-only: prev is not a production hosting platform — it's purpose-built for temporary preview environments
• No built-in CDN: Previews are served from regional containers, not a global edge network
• No Git integration out of the box: You add prev to your CI/CD pipeline yourself (typically 2-3 lines)

Side-by-Side Comparison

When to Use Netlify

Netlify is the right choice when you:

• Host a static or JAMstack site: If your entire project is a static frontend (React, Vue, Hugo, etc.), Netlify handles hosting and previews in one place
• Want zero-config deploys: Connect your Git repo once, and Netlify handles the rest
• Need production hosting + previews: If you want one platform for everything, including production, Netlify is a solid choice for supported project types
• Use Netlify-specific features: Forms, identity, edge functions, and other platform features

When to Use prev

prev is the right choice when you:

• Run a backend application: If your project includes a server (Express, Django, Rails, Go, etc.), prev can preview the full stack
• Use Docker: prev natively supports Dockerfile-based deployments
• Don't want platform lock-in: Keep your production hosting separate from your preview tooling
• Work across multiple hosting providers: Use prev for previews regardless of whether production runs on AWS, Vercel, DigitalOcean, or your own infrastructure
• Need quick ad-hoc previews: Run prev from your terminal without any Git integration setup
• Want to replace staging servers: Use ephemeral preview environments instead of maintaining permanent staging infrastructure

A Common Workflow

Some teams use both tools together:

• Netlify hosts the production frontend (static marketing site, docs, etc.)
• prev provides preview environments for the full-stack application during development

This way, you get Netlify's CDN and hosting for production, while prev handles isolated, temporary previews for your complete application stack — backend included.

Conclusion

Netlify is a hosting platform with preview deployments as one of many features. prev is a dedicated tool built specifically for preview environments that works with any project type.

If you're building a static or JAMstack frontend and want an all-in-one hosting solution, Netlify is excellent. If you need preview environments for full-stack applications, Docker-based projects, or want to keep your preview tooling independent from your hosting provider, give prev a try.