When I first set up my Hugo blog on Netlify, I loved the automatic deploy preview feature for pull requests. However, I quickly realized that each preview deployment consumes free tier credits (currently 300 credits/month). With frequent updates and iterations, I was burning through my monthly allowance faster than expected.
Rather than upgrading to a paid plan for something I only needed once in a while, I implemented a dual-deployment strategy: GitHub Pages for previews, Netlify for production. This approach gives me unlimited preview deployments while keeping my production site on Netlify’s excellent CDN.