When comparing ZEIT Now vs Neocities, the Slant community recommends Neocities for most people. In the question“What are the best website hosting providers?” Neocities is ranked 7th while ZEIT Now is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose Neocities is:
Neocities has a free tier which provides hosting for up to 1GB of space and tools for website building.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Deployments via a simple command line command
Installing their CLI and calling "now" inside your project's root will automatically build your project, whether it may be a Node.js or a Docker app , or maybe a static website, it works on the platform.
Pro Custom domain support
ZEIT Now supports custom domains, if that doesn't ring your bell, they also allow you to buy a domain directly from ZEIT, and even from the CLI.
Pro From the developers of Hyper Terminal and Next.js
The renowned developers of the Hyper Terminal and Framework for React applications develops and maintains this platform.
Pro Good support
You can talk to the staff anytime via their slack real-time, or mail them. They provide good assistance and will help you on any questions or issues on the platform.
Pro In-depth documentation
The documentation is very in-depth and can help you understand on how to make your application work on the platform.
Pro Free tier
Neocities has a free tier which provides hosting for up to 1GB of space and tools for website building.
Pro Easy to use drag and drop interface
Neocities uses a drag and drop interface to upload files on their server. This makes it arguably the best option for beginners for it's ease of use.
Pro Lively community
Neocities also has a social aspect allowing for discovery of your site and interaction with and learning from others.
Cons
Con Docker builds can only execute at the CMD Layer
ZEIT Now executes everything using docker run, so whatever was defined in the CMD Layer, is what will ZEIT will only execute.
Con Node.js apps has no access to the instance's filesystem
Once the Node.js build has completed, the only accessible directory is /tmp, which makes any file operation impossible outside the /tmp directory.
Con Free plan makes your code public
Unless you upgrade to a paid plan, the source code can be easily viewed by others.
Con Custom domains not free
User must sign up for paid plan ($5/mo) to use their own domain.
Con Supports a limited selection of file types
Neocities only supports a limited number of file types. So for types not supported, third party services need to be used.
Con No SFTP support
Neocities has no SFTP support. In stead it uses a drag and drop web based interface, which is a nice tradeoff for beginners. It's not very useful for more advanced users though.