# App hosting for startups: which vendors AI models recommend (September 2026)

Source: Memetik Index, https://www.memetik.ai/index/app-hosting
Field: Startup stack. Edition: 2026-09. Run: 2026-09-02.
Method: 5 fixed buyer prompts sent once each to 10 current models (GPT-5.6 Sol, GPT-5.6 Terra, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude Sonnet 5, Claude Fable 5, Gemini 3.6 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Sonar Pro, Sonar Reasoning Pro) via their APIs with web search enabled. 50 answers. Answer share = fraction of answers naming the vendor. Named first = fraction where it was the first tracked vendor named.

**Vercel leads** with 92% answer share (named in 46 of 50 answers) and was named first in 62%. AWS follows at 84%. 18 vendors were named at least once.

## Answer share

| # | Vendor | Answer share | Named first | Mentions | Models |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vercel | 92% | 62% | 46/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, ChatGPT, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 2 | AWS | 84% | 0% | 42/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, ChatGPT, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 3 | Render | 82% | 16% | 41/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, ChatGPT, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 4 | Cloudflare | 68% | 0% | 34/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, ChatGPT, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 5 | Railway | 66% | 4% | 33/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, ChatGPT, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 6 | Google Cloud | 60% | 2% | 30/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, ChatGPT, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 7 | Fly.io | 56% | 0% | 28/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, ChatGPT, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity |
| 8 | DigitalOcean | 56% | 0% | 28/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, ChatGPT, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 9 | Netlify | 54% | 0% | 27/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 10 | Azure | 50% | 0% | 25/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 11 | Heroku | 32% | 2% | 16/50 | GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 12 | Hetzner | 26% | 0% | 13/50 | GPT-5.6 Sol, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 13 | Hostinger | 22% | 14% | 11/50 | Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 14 | Supabase | 22% | 0% | 11/50 | ChatGPT, GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Opus 5, Claude, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity |
| 15 | Bluehost | 18% | 0% | 9/50 | Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 16 | SiteGround | 14% | 0% | 7/50 | Claude Opus 5, Claude, Claude Fable 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |
| 17 | Coolify | 8% | 0% | 4/50 | Claude Opus 5, Gemini, Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| 18 | DreamHost | 6% | 0% | 3/50 | Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity, Sonar Reasoning Pro |

## By model

- **GPT-5.6 Sol** (OpenAI, gpt-5.6-sol, 5 answers): Vercel 100%, AWS 100%, Render 100%, Cloudflare 80%, Google Cloud 80%
- **GPT-5.6 Terra** (OpenAI, gpt-5.6-terra, 5 answers): Vercel 100%, AWS 100%, Render 80%, Cloudflare 80%, Fly.io 80%
- **GPT-5.6 Luna** (OpenAI, gpt-5.6-luna, 5 answers): Vercel 100%, AWS 100%, Render 100%, Fly.io 100%, Cloudflare 80%
- **Claude Opus 5** (Anthropic, claude-opus-5, 5 answers): Vercel 100%, Render 100%, Railway 100%, Fly.io 100%, AWS 80%
- **Claude Sonnet 5** (Anthropic, claude-sonnet-5, 5 answers): AWS 100%, Vercel 80%, Render 80%, Railway 80%, Google Cloud 80%
- **Claude Fable 5** (Anthropic, claude-fable-5, 5 answers): Vercel 80%, AWS 80%, Render 80%, Railway 80%, DigitalOcean 80%
- **Gemini 3.6 Flash** (Google, gemini-3.6-flash, 5 answers): Vercel 100%, AWS 100%, Render 80%, Google Cloud 80%, Fly.io 80%
- **Gemini 3.5 Flash** (Google, gemini-3.5-flash, 5 answers): Vercel 100%, Cloudflare 100%, DigitalOcean 100%, AWS 80%, Render 80%
- **Sonar Pro** (Perplexity, sonar-pro, 5 answers): Vercel 80%, Render 60%, Cloudflare 60%, Railway 60%, AWS 40%
- **Sonar Reasoning Pro** (Perplexity, sonar-reasoning-pro, 5 answers): Vercel 80%, Cloudflare 80%, DigitalOcean 80%, Hostinger 80%, AWS 60%

## Sources the models cited

- reddit.com: 57
- makerkit.dev: 32
- appwrite.io: 30
- youtube.com: 28
- northflank.com: 25
- vercel.com: 23
- medium.com: 23
- hostingstep.com: 21
- render.com: 19
- techradar.com: 19
- webapprater.com: 19
- pandastack.io: 18
- dev.to: 16
- websiteplanet.com: 15
- blog.railway.com: 15

## Prompts

1. What is the best hosting platform for a web app? Name specific products.
2. Which hosting platform would you recommend to a web app in 2026?
3. Compare the top hosting platform options right now.
4. I'm a web app and I need a hosting platform. What should I use and why?
5. Best hosting platform for a web app for a Next.js app with a backend?

## Tracked but never named

None.

Raw answers: https://www.memetik.ai/index/app-hosting (every answer published in full). Chart image: https://www.memetik.ai/charts/app-hosting.png. Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit "Memetik Index".