Is the deployment platform market growing or shrinking?
Miles FosterOwner and tester, RankDude
The answer▲ Growingbut visits are down 14% since August 2026
- Visits, year on year, without Vercel
- +27%
- Visits, last six months
- -8.6%
- Name searches, year on year
- +93%
Every month I add up the Google visits to the 43 deployment platform sites I track (DataForSEO estimates) and how often people in the US search for them by name (Google Ads). In September 2026 they got about 2.7 million visits. Much of the year’s change is one site, Vercel; without it, visits are up 27% on a year ago.
The total hides very different stories: one site grew 214% in a year while another lost 73% of its visits. See who grew and who shrank, the visits month by month and the name searches, plus what I expect for October 2026.
Deployment platform market demand: key numbers, September 2026
Four numbers for September 2026. Visits mean visits from Google search to the 43 tracked sites. Tap one for the detail below.
- Visits from Google2.7Mvisits-9% vs a year ago
- Name searches, US533Ksearches+93% vs a year ago
- Top five sites86.9%of visitsfastest grower: Encore Cloud
- Expected in October2.8Mvisitslikely 2.5M to 3.1M
- The deployment platform market is growing as of September 2026, but visits are down 14% since August 2026.
- The 43 deployment platform sites RankDude tracks got 2,671,923 visits from Google search in September 2026, 9% fewer visits than in September 2025, or 27% more without Vercel.
- People in the US searched Google for these sites by name 533,120 times in September 2026, 93% more searches than in September 2025.
- The five most-visited deployment platform sites get 86.9% of all visits.
- Fastest-growing deployment platform site over the year: Encore Cloud, +214% (5.8K to 18.1K visits a month).
- Steepest fall over the year: Porter, -73% (10.0K to 2.7K visits a month).
- Forecast for October 2026: about 2.8M visits, likely between 2.5M and 3.1M.
Source: DataForSEO visit estimates and Google Ads search data, published 19 October 2026 by RankDude.
1.Are more people visiting deployment platform sites than a year ago?
Down 9% on a year ago; down 14% on August 2026
Only because of Vercel. The 43 tracked deployment platform sites got 2,671,923 visits from Google search in September 2026. That is 9% fewer visits than in September 2025, or 27% more without Vercel, and 14% fewer visits than in August 2026.
The highest month of the last two years was August 2026, with 3,110,047 visits; September 2026 is 14% below it. In the US, visits were 282,964, down 8% on a year ago.
WorldVisits a month to deployment platform sites, worldwide, two years
Source: DataForSEO, Google search visits, all tracked sites.
Worldwide, this month
2.7M
-8.6% on a year ago
United States, this month
283K
-7.6% on a year ago
Two-year high
3.1M
August 2026
US share of visits
10.6%
of worldwide visits
Miles explains
Visits are lower than a year ago and lower than in August 2026, so the fall is still going. Google Trends interest in the term fell (-62%), but name searches did not, so some interest has cooled.
2.Are people searching for deployment platform sites by name?
Up 93% on a year ago; 533K name searches a month in the US
Yes, more than before. People in the US searched Google for the names of the counted deployment platform sites 533,120 times in September 2026, 93% more searches than a year earlier. Someone who searches a site’s name already knows it, so this is the clearest sign of people coming back on purpose. The term “deployment platforms” itself gets about 70 US searches a month (Google Ads, 12-month average).
USName searches a month for deployment platform sites, US
Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, to September 2026.
USMost searched deployment platform sites by name, searches a month
Netlify246K a month
Vercel246K a month
Heroku12.1K a month
Coolify6.6K a month
Modal3.6K a month
Fly.io2.9K a month
Miles explains
Name searches are up while visits are down, so people still know where to go. Google Trends interest in the term fell (-62%), so part of the drop may be lower interest too.
3.Which deployment platform sites grew, and which shrank?
The five most-visited sites hold 86.9% of all visits; the ten most-visited hold 94.6%
The five most-visited deployment platform sites get 86.9% of all visits, so one of them winning or losing a big Google ranking moves the whole total. Fastest grower over the year: Encore Cloud, from 5,763 to 18,066 visits (+214%). Steepest fall: Porter, from 10,021 to 2,679 visits (-73%).
Growing fastest, year on year
Encore Cloud18.1K visits+214%
Northflank29.3K visits+159%
Railway370K visits+71%
Render403K visits+62%- Netlify652K visits+48%
Falling fastest, year on year
Porter2.7K visits-73%- Heroku82.1K visits-64%
- Fly.io17.9K visits-52%
- Vercel770K visits-46%
Easypanel9.4K visits-38%
Source: DataForSEO. Sites with 5,000+ visits a year ago.