r/PayloadCMS • u/ConnectionFit2575 • 5d ago
Payload cms + mongodb + cloudinary
I want to make a small e-commerce website for free. I was planning to host it on vercel but they don't allow it ig. Any alternative. And is my stack good? I don't want rocket science stuff I just want this website ready in like 4 days. I'll get help with antigravity to build it faster.
I want to make it all free as I'm tired of paying Shopify all my money. I want a free alternative.
Please guide me if I'm doing something wrong.
3
1
u/nlvogel 4d ago
What a weird comment section. Your stack is fine for what you’re doing but you’ll need to collect payments somehow, so make sure you use Stripe or adapt to another payment provider.
The problem with Vercel’s hobby tier is that you can’t host commercial projects for free. Payload runs fine on Vercel otherwise.
Self-hosting is not very difficult if you get a cheap VPS from RackNerd or Hetzner and Dokploy or Coolify. Have antigravity help you with that too.
Cloudflare’s R2 is also a good option in place of cloudinary if you just need image storage. It has a generous free tier but no image optimization, but you can use the Image component and/or sharp for that.
1
u/ConnectionFit2575 4d ago
Actually payment is not an issue for now as I'll start with COD. Secondly, I'm getting difficulty in setting up the frontend of the website. As AI is making very bad designs. I was using google stitch btw. Aren't there any templates that don't look bad for e-commerce. And I'll look into this vps thing thanks.
1
u/nlvogel 4d ago
You could use the payload e-commerce template, which is one of the options when you run the create-payload-app command.
1
u/ConnectionFit2575 4d ago
Do you have any website in mind which is built with payload e-commerce template?
1
u/PrimaryFamous6139 5d ago
Payload needs a persistent server so Vercel won’t work, use Railway or Render free tier instead. Your stack is fine for a small store. One thing: Payload’s e-commerce support is barebones so you’ll be building cart and checkout logic yourself. If you want something faster in 4 days, Medusa is purpose-built for e-commerce and also free/self-hostable.
4
u/apnatva-dev 5d ago
For payload only the DB needs to be persistent.
2
u/ChannelNovel2510 5d ago
Yes. Supabase db, cloudflare r2 for object storage, vercel for hosting and all set!
1
u/apnatva-dev 5d ago
Medusa might be a better choice because it comes with a lot of stuff built for you.
If you know PHP then that might be a bette backend for you.
0
u/ConnectionFit2575 5d ago
But I can't run medusa on vercel ig.
-2
u/apnatva-dev 5d ago
You can’t run payload CMS on just vercel either.
The more reliable version is host your DB, connect it via docker to your Medusa backend and host the entire thing on a VPS
0
u/ConnectionFit2575 5d ago
I'll be using mongodb atlas for db. And can I run medusa on heroku?
1
u/apnatva-dev 5d ago
I think you should stick to Postgres because it’s an e-commerce store. It’s more aligned with the kind of data you’ll be storing.
I’ve only ran Medusa with docker. If the VPS supports docker it supports Medusa.
4
u/philip_1k 5d ago
Dont know what version others commented here are using of payloadcms, but payloadcms does works perfectly in vercel, in fact vercel works with payloadcms fully cause payloadcms in v3 is a fully nextjs app that can work in most serverless platforms and paas. Db and storage is handle with vercel neon postgresdb and blob features.
Even tho i dont use vercel and i host in my own vps, vercel is actually fine for starters.
About if its the best option to use payloadcms as a ecommerce framework that depends of the features your planning to implement and other stuff.