When the frontend outgrows the platform
The pattern is familiar: the marketing site becomes a product, the product needs accounts and data, the data needs search, the search needs background jobs — and the platform that made the first deploy instant is now one tab among six. Each addition was reasonable; the sum is an architecture nobody declared anywhere.
Moving the backend first
The low-risk order is backend first. Records move into tables, uploads into buckets, cron-style glue into workers and workflows — while the frontend keeps deploying exactly as before and calls the new project over HTTPS.
- The interface can follow later: gateway prefix routes serve it from the same project
- Every step is one stack.json diff, so the migration itself stays reviewable
See also our detailed KERNSTACK vs Vercel comparison and the Software Lifecycle Cloud architecture pillar.
Why teams switch from Vercel to KERNSTACK
| Dimension | Vercel | KERNSTACK (Software Lifecycle Cloud) |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Frontend hosting, previews, and edge delivery | The whole product: routes, compute, data, search, workflows |
| Backend data | Partner databases and storage from a marketplace | Tables and buckets as resources of the project |
| Long work | Functions with platform execution limits; queues are add-ons | Container workers and declared workflows with human steps |
| Agents | Not part of the platform model | Agents draft in sandboxes; people approve the plan |
| Bill | The platform plus every attached vendor | One credit balance for the whole project |
| Hosting | Hyperscaler regions behind the platform | Our own bare metal in Europe, one zone per project |
Frequently asked questions
No. Move the backend resources first and call them from the frontend you have. The interface can move into the same project later, when the team wants one graph instead of two platforms.
Their contents move with ordinary exports into tables and buckets, and their accounts can close when the traffic does. Until then they keep running — KERNSTACK does not need a flag day, and no vendor data is imported automatically.
The loop is different rather than slower: change stack.json or the code, review the plan, promote. Preview targets run the same declared shape as production, so what you reviewed is what ships — including the backend pieces a frontend platform never showed you.
Related capabilities, architectures, and comparisons
Ship your stack on the Software Lifecycle Cloud.
Closed preview on dedicated European infrastructure. Bring a repository or start from a blueprint.