In this glossary topic:
What is hosting?
Hosting is where an app lives when it's no longer just on the builder's machine: servers, run by a hosting provider, that keep the app available on the internet around the clock. Localhost is the private workshop; hosting is the public address.
For vibe coders the distinction usually surfaces at the moment of sharing. An app that works perfectly in the builder's browser is invisible to everyone else until it's deployed to hosting and gets a URL.
How does hosting work for vibe-coded apps?
Mostly invisibly. App builders like Lovable, Replit, and Bolt include hosting, so publishing is one click and the result is a live link on the platform's domain. Standalone hosting platforms like Vercel and Netlify serve the same role for projects built with agentic coding tools, deploying straight from a code repository.
A custom domain name can be attached to any of these, replacing the platform's address with the product's own. The other post-deploy essentials live in the hosting dashboard too: environment variables for secrets, usage metrics, and logs for debugging what went wrong in production.
What does hosting cost?
Free tiers cover most prototypes and personal tools, with limits on traffic, compute hours, or the app sleeping when idle. Paid plans start cheap and scale with usage.
The costs that surprise builders usually aren't the hosting itself but what the hosted app does: API calls to paid services multiply once real users arrive. Hosting dashboards and spending limits on connected services are the two places to watch in an app's first weeks.
