Seamless deployments have improved rapid prototypes and streamlined feedback in every sprint
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Netlify Platform is that I'm using the free tier, so whenever I have a proof of concept, it's very easy for me to develop it and very quickly deploy it. When I was doing Udacity mentorship as a mentor, I used to encourage my students to use Netlify so they can quickly share their work with friends and family, because it's super easy to deploy.
Using Netlify Platform for my proof of concepts and mentorship projects makes things easier compared to other platforms because AWS is quite complicated. For self-hosting, that's also super complicated. Basically, it takes the least amount of steps for you to have your project up and running, especially the front-end one. So it has been a blessing. Whenever I taught them, especially my Udacity mentees, they followed along and then the next day I saw all of them having their work up because it was super easy.
I usually encourage others to use Netlify Platform because it's free and the free tier is awesome. Whenever we're trying to do a proof of concept of some specific UI style, sometimes a proof of concept for a specific dashboard style, I would also encourage them to put it up here because it's a one-minute deployment and they will be able to share it with the rest of the team as a demo.
What is most valuable?
Netlify Platform's best features include its ability to take away the complexities of AWS and self-hosting, making hosting a no-brainer.
Netlify Platform makes hosting a no-brainer because, let's say I have my GitHub and I have my CI/CD planned properly. I would just authenticate Netlify Platform and my GitHub, and then I'll give it the repo. As soon as I push, the CI/CD pipeline just works. In my previous company, not Rihal but at Phazero, we used to use it as our CI/CD pipeline for testing. Once the CI/CD runs, it would just put it up immediately per branch and made testing super easy. Imagine you have your branch deployed automatically and then the designer can test it.
Performance on Netlify Platform has always been fast. I don't know where the servers are at, but I'm in Oman and usually whenever I'm using some sort of a free service, they're usually slow. This has been the freest and the fastest I've used. So I'm still sticking with it instead of going with Vercel or anything else.
Netlify Platform has positively impacted my organization by cleaning up our workflows when I was working at Phazero. Our designer was having trouble making sure she's giving us timely feedback. For her to give us timely feedback, she was supposed to see the website up as soon as possible. So, that was not possible before. We would have to manually deploy or maybe set up a difficult CI/CD pipeline. When we set up Netlify Platform for projects at Phazero, it basically became a super automated, easy way. It increased the quality of our products, so the designer and then the testers would immediately see a feature as soon as it's ready. Our workflows become way more relaxed, so we wouldn't get stressed before the end of the sprint to fix a lot of bugs because they get caught on time. All that enabled because we didn't have to actually spend too much time into CI/CD setup. It was super easy at the start of a project, takes less than half an hour and you're ready.
Since using Netlify Platform, I see specific outcomes where bugs get reduced by a lot. My only measurement would be on how relaxed I was during the sprints because instead of finding twenty bugs at the end of the sprint, I will be finding them two per day, three per day, and as soon as I finish my work, it will get tested. So the bugs will get spread out in a proper timeline. I will be able to fix them. I don't have to get stressed by the end of the sprint. Netlify Platform also made the client much happier. The team is happier now because they were able to get a cleaner product with a higher quality because of the faster deployments.
What needs improvement?
I'm not sure how exactly Netlify Platform would be improved because I'm too used to it. I'm using the same tools over and over in a similar way and it's so intuitive at this point that I don't know how it could get improved even further.
For a first-time visitor to Netlify Platform, I actually had to check a tutorial on YouTube on how I can upload things and deploy them. Although Netlify Platform makes it easy and with fewer steps, I did it once and then it stuck in my head. I knew where to click and what to do. But as a first-time visitor, me or even my mentees who were trying to upload things, they will face the same kind of confusion that it doesn't click at the first time.
I think if you're a newbie to Netlify Platform, you are going to be avoiding documentation. For me, later on when I'm checking the documentation, everything is clear already. So, the part that needed more attention was that first-time users might feel a bit of a hiccup when they're using it and they wouldn't understand how to do it. But as they do it for the first time, then it will be easy enough for them. Any other feedback, I don't think I have because it's been just working great for me.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Netlify Platform for around four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Netlify Platform is stable, actually, versus Vercel.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I don't have much experience with scalability of Netlify Platform, as we only used it during development time with a small account. So, maybe it's great, since it's built on top of other cloud providers. I'm pretty sure it will be great, but I don't have firsthand experience on scaling things really up.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did use one solution before, but I forgot the name of it. It had a free tier at the start, and then their paid tier was a bit too expensive. Then we moved to Netlify Platform free tier. It was super worth it and then we upgraded. This was around 2019, 2020 when we were using the other platform, and it got annoying at a time. It was quite popular at the time as well. Some team members also vouched for using Vercel, but since it was less complicated for most of us to use Netlify Platform, we just stuck with it because there's no strong reason for us to move to Vercel.
We used Heroku before. When you were asking what other services we used, it was Heroku, and when we were using it, they closed their free tier.
What was our ROI?
Although I would not have specific numbers, since Netlify Platform reduced the amount of bugs and the clients were happier, that's a great return on investment. That's a qualitative measure, not a quantitative one. Us panicking less about deployments means you don't even have to think about it anymore. It's being taken care of, the CI/CD pipeline, the quick integrations. It already improved the developer experience and also the client experience with us, and even the management experience and the testing experience. Quantitative, I would not have the numbers, unfortunately.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that the company dealt with that and it wasn't exactly me. We were only using our subscription for the test phase and then the development phase of the applications. For production, we would have our own infrastructure. Because of the conveniences of Netlify Platform, it was pretty easy to use it for development time. So I'm not really sure about the pricing and anything else. It seems we were not paying that much, probably on a lower subscription.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Netlify Platform, we evaluated other options including DigitalOcean and self-hosting.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Effortless Deployment and Automation with Netlify
What do you like best about the product?
I like that I'm able to deploy my web applications on Netlify easily using a live link. This feature is useful for publishing both front-end and back-end applications like those built with React, Next.js, Angular, Vue, and Django. The platform allows me to connect to real applications and deploy for various purposes such as ecommerce stores or client projects. I appreciate using artificial intelligence to help detect errors during deployment and enhance productivity. The command line interface, continuous integration, and continuous development features are great for ensuring my applications are always deployable and up to date, which helps prevent vulnerabilities and software rejections. Netlify automates the deployment process, checking for exposed .env variables and outdated software, which is crucial for maintaining security and functionality.
What do you dislike about the product?
Netlify has where it requires you use a certain amount of credits. They have their own command line interface, which I can easily use within the terminal rather than using the web application. Or the web version and being able to manually deploy it. It also gives me error messages when it hasn't been successfully deployed to the platform and posted to the web. There's also some ways of detecting any vulnerabilities and how I can improve and protect the web application from vulnerabilities. Just like Cloudflare or Vercel, Vercel has a detection where it can tell if you're vulnerable and which platform is vulnerable.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use Netlify to deploy applications with live links, automate deployments using CLI, detect errors with AI, and ensure up-to-date software. It helps me showcase projects and handle servers efficiently, boosting productivity.
