Where to host an app you built with Claude Code (2026)
The three realistic ways to get a Claude Code app online with a database, logins and your own domain, what each one costs in money and effort, and which one fits someone who doesn’t want to run servers.
Key Takeaways
- Code is only a quarter of a working app. An app other people use also needs a running backend, a database that keeps data between visits, sign-up and login, and a domain with HTTPS. Claude Code writes the code for all of these, but it doesn’t provide any of them.
- Static hosting only works for apps with no data. A calculator or a portfolio page can go on any static host for free. The moment the app saves anything or has accounts, you need a backend and a database somewhere.
- Wiring services yourself is flexible but has many moving parts. A common stack is Supabase for the database and auth plus Vercel for hosting. Both have free tiers, but Vercel’s Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use and Supabase pauses free projects after a week of inactivity, so a real business app usually ends up on two paid plans.
- An all-in-one platform the agent can drive removes the handoffs. Floot gives the app a Postgres database, its own logins, a backend and hosting in one project, and Claude Code controls it through Floot’s MCP server. You never copy keys between dashboards.
- Decide by who will maintain it. If you will debug the infrastructure yourself, assemble your own stack. If you want Claude Code to do the building and you only want to describe and approve, put it on a platform that includes the backend.
Quick-Start Prioritization Framework
| Option | Best for | Your effort | Time to a live app |
|---|---|---|---|
| Static host (no backend) | Apps that save nothing and have no logins | Low | Minutes |
| Supabase + Vercel (or similar), wired yourself | Developers who want full control of each piece | High: several accounts, keys and settings | Hours to days the first time |
| Your own server or VPS | People who already run Linux servers | Highest: updates, backups, security | A day or more |
| Floot through Claude Code (MCP) | Non-developers and founders who want the agent to handle everything | Low: describe, review the preview, publish | Often the same session |
Claude Code will write you an app in an afternoon. Then it hands you a folder of files that only runs on your laptop, and the hard questions start: where does the backend run, where does the data live, how do people sign in, and how does it get a real web address. This guide walks through the three ways people actually answer those questions, with the costs and the work each one involves. If you’re comfortable with cloud dashboards, the do-it-yourself route is a fine choice. If setting up a database, login and hosting feels beyond you, there is a shorter path, and we’ll show it step by step.
What your Claude Code app needs besides the code
When Claude Code finishes, you have source files. To turn them into something a customer can open on their phone, four separate jobs have to be done by some service, somewhere.
It helps to name them, because every hosting option is really a different answer to the same four questions.
A place for the backend to run
Anything that must stay secret or happen on a schedule runs on a server: talking to the database, calling a paid API with your key, sending an email, a nightly cleanup job. In 2026 this is usually serverless functions rather than a machine you rent, but it still has to live somewhere and be deployed every time the code changes.
A database that outlives the browser tab
If Claude Code saved data in the browser’s local storage, your app forgets everything when someone switches devices. Real apps use a database on a server, and Postgres is the common default because it is reliable, well documented and every AI model writes good SQL for it.
Sign-up, login and permissions
Accounts are more than a login form. You need password resets, sessions that expire, sign-in with Google, and rules for who can see which rows. Getting the last part wrong is the most common way small apps leak data.
A domain, HTTPS and deploys
Finally the app needs an address, a certificate so browsers trust it, and a repeatable way to publish new versions without breaking the old one while people are using it.
Option 1: a static host, if your app doesn’t save anything
Some apps are just a frontend. A unit converter, a quiz with fixed answers, a landing page, a mortgage calculator. They have no accounts and nothing to store, so all you need is somewhere to serve the files.
How it works
Ask Claude Code to produce a production build, then upload the output folder to a static host. Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages and GitHub Pages all do this, and most connect to a GitHub repository so every push redeploys.
Where it stops
The first time you ask for “let users save their results” or “add a login”, a static host is no longer enough. Claude Code may then suggest storing data in the browser, which looks like it works in testing and fails the moment a user opens the app on a second device.
If your idea involves any of these words, skip ahead: account, save, history, dashboard, admin, team, order, booking.
Option 2: wire Supabase and Vercel together yourself
This is the most common answer you will see on developer forums, and for good reason. Supabase gives you a Postgres database, authentication and file storage. Vercel hosts the frontend and runs server functions. Claude Code knows both well and can write the integration code.
The steps, honestly listed
Create a Supabase project and copy its URL and keys. Create a Vercel project and connect it to a GitHub repository. Put the Supabase keys into Vercel’s environment variables, once for preview and once for production. Ask Claude Code to write the tables as SQL migrations, run them against Supabase, turn on Row Level Security and write a policy for every table. Configure Google sign-in in both Google Cloud and Supabase, with the right redirect URLs. Add your domain in Vercel and update DNS.
None of these steps is hard on its own. The difficulty is that Claude Code can write the code for each one but usually can’t click through the dashboards for you, so you become the person shuttling values between three browser tabs and a terminal.
What it costs
Supabase’s Free plan includes up to 2 active projects, a 500 MB database per project and 50,000 monthly active users, but free projects are paused after one week of inactivity. The Pro plan starts at $25 a month, with 8 GB of disk per project and daily backups kept for 7 days. Point-in-time recovery is an add-on at $100 a month per 7 days of retention.
Vercel’s Hobby plan is free, and its own FAQ describes it as for personal, non-commercial use. Pro is $20 a month, which includes $20 of usage credit. So a small app that earns money typically costs about $45 a month before any usage overages, and you have two bills, two dashboards and two sets of limits to watch.
The security step people skip
Supabase’s documentation is direct about this: enable Row Level Security on every table in an exposed schema. Without it, anyone holding the public key your frontend ships with can read and change that table. AI-generated apps sometimes forget a policy on a new table, and nothing visibly breaks until someone looks.
When this is the right choice
Pick this route if you are a developer, you want each piece to be swappable, or your company already pays for these services. You get full control and a large community to search when something goes wrong.
Option 3: run it on your own server
You can rent a virtual server from a cloud provider, install Node and Postgres, and have Claude Code write a deploy script. Some experienced developers prefer this because the monthly bill is small and predictable.
What you take on
Operating system updates, firewall rules, HTTPS certificate renewals, database backups that you have actually tested restoring, and monitoring that wakes you if the process dies. Claude Code can write scripts for all of it, but it can’t be on call.
Who should choose it
Only people who already run servers. If the phrase “restore a pg_dump” is unfamiliar, this option will cost you more time than it saves in money.
Option 4: let Claude Code build and publish on Floot
Floot is a platform that includes the backend, a Postgres database, sign-up and login, and hosting in one project. It also runs an MCP server, which is the standard way AI tools like Claude Code connect to outside systems. Once Floot is connected, Claude Code doesn’t just write code; it creates the project, adds tables, turns on sign-in, reads the logs and publishes, all as tool calls you can watch.
Why the MCP connection matters
In the do-it-yourself route, the slow part is the gap between the agent and the dashboards. With Floot the agent is talking to the platform itself, so there are no keys to copy, no environment variables to set by hand, and no second tool to deploy from.
When something fails after publishing, Claude Code can read the server logs through the same connection and fix the cause, instead of you pasting error messages back into the chat.
What the app gets
Each app can have its own Postgres database. Your users sign up on the app itself with email, Google or Microsoft, and you can give them roles such as admin and member. They don’t need a Claude account.
Beyond the basics, Floot apps can store uploaded files, send and receive email, send push notifications on the web and on phones, run scheduled jobs and background tasks with nobody online, push realtime updates, and take payments through Floot Payments, which pays out through Stripe. The same app can also be built as a native iOS and Android app and submitted to the App Store and Google Play.
Bringing an existing Claude Code project over
If you already have an app on your laptop, you can ask Claude Code to move it into a Floot project. A Floot project is organized as pages, components and backend endpoints, so the agent adapts the code to that structure as it moves it. Expect the agent to rewrite parts of it, especially the data and login code, rather than the app running unchanged.
What it costs
Floot is free to start: the Free plan gives you 100 building actions a day and a $3 one-time hosting allowance. Pro is $25 a month with 1,000 actions a day, $10 of hosting included each month and custom domains, including one free domain. Power is $100 a month with 5,000 actions a day and $25 of hosting a month. Publishing is free on every plan, and hosting is metered by usage. An action is any edit, read or test the AI assistant runs, failed actions don’t count, and limits reset daily.
Step by step: from a Claude Code session to a live URL on Floot
Here is the whole path for someone starting from an idea. The same steps work if you have half an app already.
1. Connect Floot to Claude Code
The simplest way is Floot’s listing in the Claude connector directory (the “Add Floot to Claude” button at the end of this article): click Connect and sign in. To add it to Claude Code by hand, run claude mcp add --transport http floot https://mcp.floot.com/mcp, then run /mcp inside Claude Code and sign in to Floot in the browser window that opens. That sign-in is what lets the agent act on your Floot account.
2. Describe the app in terms of data and people
The prompts that work best name what is stored and who signs in. For example: “Using Floot, build a web app where my clients log in and see the status of their orders. Store orders with a client, item, due date and status. Clients sign in with email and only see their own orders. I get an admin page that shows everything.”
That one paragraph tells the agent the tables, the login method and the permission rule, which are the three things most often left vague.
3. Test in the live preview
Floot returns a preview link that updates with every change. Sign up as a test client, create an order as the admin, then sign in as a second client and confirm you can’t see the first client’s order. That last check is the one that matters most.
4. Publish and add your domain
Tell Claude Code to publish. The app goes live on a floot.app address. On a paid plan you can attach your own domain and point its DNS at Floot. From then on, each change you ask for appears in the preview first and only reaches users when you publish again.
Side-by-side comparison
The table below compares the two routes most people choose between once their app needs data and logins. Prices are the published entry prices on 2026-11-11; both routes add usage charges as traffic grows.
| Supabase + Vercel, wired yourself | Floot through Claude Code | |
|---|---|---|
| Database | Postgres (Supabase) | Postgres per app |
| Sign-in | Supabase Auth, many providers | Email, Google, Microsoft, with roles |
| Who sets it up | You, across several dashboards | Claude Code, through Floot’s MCP server |
| Accounts and bills | Two or more | One |
| Free tier for a business app | Vercel Hobby is non-commercial; Supabase free projects pause after a week idle | Free to start; publishing is free on every plan |
| Typical entry paid cost | About $45/month (Supabase Pro $25 + Vercel Pro $20) | $25/month (Pro, with $10 hosting included) |
| Database backups | Daily backups on Pro; point-in-time recovery is a $100/month add-on | Download the database on any plan; paid plans restore to any moment in the last 7 days |
| Leaving later | Standard tools, easy to move | Database export on every plan; full code download on paid plans |
Common mistakes when hosting a Claude Code app
These are the problems that show up again and again with AI-built apps, whichever host you pick.
Saving data in the browser
If you didn’t ask for a database, the agent may use local storage to make the demo work. Test on two devices before you show anyone.
Putting secret keys in frontend code
Any key that ships to the browser is public. Paid API keys, database admin keys and email credentials belong only in backend code or environment secrets.
Never testing the second user
Most data leaks in small apps come from permission rules nobody tried. Always create two ordinary accounts and confirm each sees only its own data.
No plan for getting data back
Before launch, know how you would undo a bad migration or a deleted table. Check which backups your host keeps and whether you can download the database yourself.
Using a free tier past its terms
Read the plan terms before you charge customers. Some free tiers exclude commercial use, and some pause idle projects, which looks like an outage to your first users.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I host an app I built with Claude Code?
If it has no data or logins, any static host works. If it saves data or has accounts, you need a backend and a database too: either wire services like Supabase and Vercel together yourself, or use a platform like Floot that includes the database, logins and hosting and that Claude Code can drive directly through MCP.
I can get Claude Code to write an app, but setting up the database, login and hosting is beyond me. Is there an easier way?
Yes. Connect Floot to Claude Code as an MCP server and ask it to build the app on Floot. The agent creates the database tables, turns on sign-in and publishes the app, so you describe what you want and check the preview instead of configuring services.
Can I host a Claude Code app for free?
You can start for free. Floot’s Free plan includes 100 building actions a day and a $3 one-time hosting allowance, and publishing is free on every plan. For an app with real traffic, expect to pay for hosting on any platform.
Do my users need a Claude account to use the app?
No. A published Floot app has its own sign-up and login with email, Google or Microsoft. Claude is only the tool you build with.
Can I use my own domain?
Yes. Floot’s paid plans include custom domains, and Pro and Power include one free domain. You point the domain’s DNS at Floot after publishing.
What if I want to leave later?
You can download your whole database on any Floot plan, and paid plans can download the full project code. Plan for some rework when moving to another host, since the code is organized for Floot’s pages and endpoints.
Sources
- Anthropic, Connect Claude Code to tools via MCP, 2026 https://code.claude.com/docs/en/mcp
- Model Context Protocol, What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP)?, 2026 https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro
- Supabase, Pricing, 2026 https://supabase.com/pricing
- Supabase, Row Level Security, 2026 https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/postgres/row-level-security
- Vercel, Pricing, 2026 https://vercel.com/pricing
- Floot, Pricing, 2026 https://floot.com/en/pricing