Vercel is the only infrastructure I haven't second-guessed

Most of my technology opinions are skeptical by default. Vercel is the exception. The experience of going from 'code on my computer' to 'live on the internet with a custom domain and security certificate' is genuinely hard to beat. One command (or one push to the main branch) and it's live.

Hosting for the site itself. Built-in analytics for visitor counts (the privacy-friendly kind that doesn't need a cookie consent banner). Speed monitoring that shows how fast real visitors experience the site, not just lab scores from my fast laptop. Custom domain on nirmitmeher.com, all handled through a simple DNS setup that took ten minutes.

Sign up, connect your project, and deploy. For a custom domain, add it in the Vercel dashboard, then update your domain registrar's DNS records to point at Vercel (they give you the exact values). Security certificates are provisioned automatically. Analytics and speed monitoring are free on the basic tier and take about two minutes to enable.

One thing I'd strongly recommend: create a deploy script with safety checks instead of relying on auto-deploy. Mine checks that the project is linked correctly and that the live site actually serves the new version after deploy. That guard caught a misrouting bug that would have been invisible otherwise.

Linking your local project to the right Vercel project is fragile when you have multiple projects on one account. I once accidentally deployed to a completely different project and didn't realize it because the live site still showed the old version (which looked fine). My deploy script now refuses to proceed unless the project link matches exactly. That's not a Vercel bug. That's a 'never blindly trust auto-confirm on something with real consequences' lesson.

Never trust auto-confirm on a command with consequences you can't undo.