A Vercel alternative for apps that need an always on server
Vercel is built around functions that scale with each request and bill by usage. That model fits an application that only needs to respond to requests. Tokay gives your workspace a free dedicated VM that never sleeps, which fits code that must keep running or data that should live on local disk.
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AI agent? Start with llms.txt.
Web apps, workers, databases, and files share one Workspace machine
If your repo has a web app and a background worker that processes a queue, Tokay runs them in the same project. The worker stays a long running process after each web request returns, with access to the same database and secrets as the web app. A bot or WebSocket server follows the same model because its process stays up between events.
A nightly script becomes a scheduled job without being wrapped in a function, and Tokay records every run. If the app uses SQLite or saves uploads to disk, persistent storage keeps those files in place through deploys and restarts.
On Tokay, a Next.js app runs as a normal server rendered app on your virtual machine. When the same repo also contains a worker, Tokay runs that worker beside the web app instead of forcing it into a function. See deploy a Next.js app.
Know what your app runs on
Your free virtual machine includes 2 vCPU and 2.5 GB of RAM, with 20 GB of storage on disk. KVM isolates it from every other customer using the same hardware virtualization boundary as major cloud providers.
Those reserved resources make the cost predictable. More traffic uses more of the same capacity without creating a larger bill. Tokay scales the Workspace by increasing the capacity of its dedicated machine, keeping the Next.js server, workers, databases, and persistent files together as the application grows.
Bring the source
A GitHub or Tokay hosted repository provides the source. Tokay detects how the application starts and which processes must keep running. No Dockerfile or deployment configuration is required.
Once the source arrives, Tokay builds it and checks the new version before it receives traffic. If the change includes a database migration, we rehearse it against a copy first and snapshot the production database before applying it.
A coding agent like Claude Code or Codex can follow the same path through Tokay's GraphQL API. It can finish setup and verify the new Tokay URL before you move DNS. The protocol is at app.tokay.io/llms.txt.
Deploy your first app on Tokay's permanent free plan without a credit card.