Due to the country's internet infrastructure and regulatory environment, Vercel-hosted sites may experience degraded performance or connectivity in mainland China. This guide outlines the causes of these issues and offers practical recommendations for mitigating them.
- No mainland China infrastructure: Vercel does not have servers or CDN nodes in mainland China. Content is served from nearby regions, leading to higher latency.
- The Great Firewall: China’s network controls may block or throttle traffic to foreign domains, including Vercel's
.vercel.appsubdomains. Even when not blocked, routing through international gateways can result in slower connections. - Regulatory constraints: Hosting within China requires an ICP license and adherence to local compliance requirements. Vercel does not offer in-country hosting or regulatory support.
- Use a custom domain: Swap the
.vercel.appdomain for your own custom domain. These are less likely to be flagged or blocked. See our documentation on how to add a custom domain: Adding & Configuring a Custom Domain - Optimize for performance: Reduce reliance on third-party scripts and services that may be blocked. Self-host fonts, analytics, and other key resources where possible.
- Leverage a mirror or dual deployment: Vercel does not recommend placing a proxy in front of a deployment. However, some customers in mainland China have improved access by deploying a static mirror using infrastructure with more reliable routing into China. Others maintain a dedicated version of their site on local infrastructure within mainland China, which requires an ICP license and compliance with local regulations.
Even with optimizations, developers should be aware that Vercel cannot guarantee availability or performance within mainland China. Any site hosted outside of China may face latency, throttling, or inaccessibility due to factors outside Vercel’s control.
Implementing the steps above can help mitigate these issues and offer a more reliable experience for users in the region.