Vercel password protection, without the enterprise add-on
Vercel can gate a deployment, but it routes through paid Deployment Protection and your Vercel team. Hostsmith puts a shared-password or email-whitelist wall in front of any upload - drop a file, flip one toggle on Pro.
Hosted in the EU on request - EU data partitions available on Pro.
The public link is free. You'll sign in free to publish it - no card needed.
If you have shipped to Vercel, you already know it is excellent at what it is built for: git-connected deployments, instant previews on every pull request, and a developer experience that is hard to fault. None of that is in question here. The friction shows up in one narrow job - sending a private, password-protected preview to a client who does not, and should not, have a Vercel account.
Where Vercel actually stands
Vercel does gate deployments. It is worth being precise about how, because a lot of comparison pages get this wrong:
- Vercel Authentication signs visitors in against your Vercel team. That is great for internal stakeholders, less great for an outside client - they end up authenticating against your team rather than typing a shared password.
- Password Protection is the shared-password option, and it has historically been a paid add-on tied to higher plans. Pricing and packaging move around, so confirm the current state on Vercel's own pricing page rather than trusting a number on a page like this.
So the honest framing is not "Vercel can't password protect a site". It can. The gap is that, for a quick external client preview, the shared-password path sits behind paid Deployment Protection and the default auth ties access to your team.
How Hostsmith handles the same job
- Drag your built site, ZIP, PDF or images onto Hostsmith. You get a free public link straight away.
- On the Pro plan, open the site settings and turn on Private Sites.
- Choose a shared password, or paste in the client's email addresses for whitelist access - only those people get in, and you can remove a reviewer without rotating anything.
Password protection, custom domains and EU data partitions are Pro features. The free tier gives you a public link, not a gate - we will not tell you gating is free, because it is not.
A note on JavaScript "password" gates
If you are tempted to drop a static export onto any host and add a client-side JavaScript password check, don't. The password and the protected URL are both in the page source; anyone can read them in the dev tools. That is obscurity, not protection. A real gate checks the password on the server before sending a single byte.
| Capability | Vercel | Hostsmith |
|---|---|---|
| Shared-password link for a client | Via Deployment Protection (paid add-on / higher tiers) | Built in on Pro - one toggle |
| Email-whitelist access | Vercel Authentication gates to your team / SSO, not arbitrary client emails | Yes, list the client's emails (Pro) |
| Deploy method | Git push or CLI | Drag and drop a file or ZIP |
| Custom domain on the gated link | Yes | Yes, on Pro |
| EU data partition | Global edge; region control is limited on lower tiers | EU partition on Pro |
| Free public link | Yes (preview and production URLs) | Yes - free tier, public link |
Frequently asked questions
Does Vercel have password protection?
Yes, through Deployment Protection - Vercel Authentication (which signs visitors in against your Vercel team) and Password Protection. Password Protection has historically been a paid add-on available on higher plans, so check Vercel's current pricing and docs before assuming your plan includes it. The point of this page is not that Vercel can't gate a site - it's that for a one-off client preview the simplest path is often a host where a shared password is a built-in toggle.
Can I send a Vercel preview to a client without giving them a Vercel account?
With Vercel Authentication the visitor signs in against your Vercel team, which suits internal reviewers more than an outside client. A shared password (Vercel's Password Protection, or a host like Hostsmith) avoids making the client authenticate at all.
How do I password protect a site on Hostsmith?
Drop your file or ZIP, then on the Pro plan turn on Private Sites and pick a shared password or an email whitelist. The public link is free; the gate is the paid part - we never pretend otherwise.
Send a gated preview in two minutes
Drop a file for a free public link, then add a password or email whitelist on Pro.
Free public links. Password protection, custom domains and EU data partitions are on Pro.