Netlify works great for prototyping, but becomes expensive af at scale. For classic use, friends recommend KnownHost.
You could try hosting on a cheap VPS and use PocketBase for your backend, or if thats too heavy handed, just use sqlite. If you're building something quick you don't wanna worry about handling a million requests per second.
"tool"
Well, depending on your definition of "tool" I'd say its still a proper answer.
Unless you're calling me a tool, which would just be funny :)
Sometimes you need a hammer. Sometimes you just need a large rock.