7 ms·

Free hosting providers for static websites in 2020

sokoloff 6y ago
Beware inaccurate info: In the first bullet: AWS is completely free for the first year of use, after that, you get charged for what you use. At a minimum, that needs a disclaimer that there is a fairy generous but not unlimited free tier to be right.
- adoxyz 6y ago
  A lot of the other providers that are free do have fair use restrictions (albeit they are very generous) that you may run up against if your site blows up.
  - wolco 6y ago
    Amazon doesn't belong on the list because it's a limited trial one year. Plus if you go over the limits you are charged. You can game some free resources over the trial period if you are careful. Not the best for set and forget.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  The details are in the article (at least now).
  - robrtsql 6y ago
    That's true. However, I think the phrase "completely free" is misleading since the truth is that it's free until you accidentally use too much--which isn't something you have all that much control over if you're hosting a static website on S3.
tengbretson 6y ago
This article is just for static sites, but does anyone have experience with an SPA on gitlab pages? Do you have to do the same 404 redirect dance in order to get routing to work like with GitHub pages?
walterbell 6y ago
Neocities is both free and community funded, 1GB storage, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeoCities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeoCities > Neocities (a portmanteau of the prefix neo- and GeoCities) is a free web hosting service. Offering 1 GB of storage space and no server-side scripting, the service's expressed goal is to revive the support of "creativity and free expression" provided by GeoCities
- cxr 6y ago
  Note that NeoCities only offers custom domains for "supporters"; the free tier requires you use a .neocities.org domain.
  - doublerabbit 6y ago
    .angelfire.com - Those were the days. Surprised to see Lycos still around.
    - 101008 6y ago
      Tripod.com too
  - walterbell 6y ago
    > You also have to use the web-based editor/uploader if you're not on the paid plan You can use their CLI for uploads. It's based on Ruby and can be invoked via a git hook. https://neocities.org/cli https://neocities.org/cli
    - cxr 6y ago
      Thanks for the correction. I've edited my comment to remove that claim.
gen3 6y ago
I’ve used github pages for my personal website with custom domain for years. My site is fronted by cloudflare. This was initially done because github pages didn’t come with SSL. It’s honestly worked really well, and was great for a student with no budget.
styfle 6y ago
The order seems arbitrary, why not put the best options first? If I were building a static website in 2020, I would expect my provider to not only host the static files, but build from source when I `git push`. That narrows down the list to 5 so I would put those at the top. Second, I would expect the products that don't come with static hosting out of the box to be at the bottom of the list. For example, number 4 says "Heroku is free for non-commercial apps. It doesn’t offer hosting for static websites out-of-the-box but need some hacky tricks". Disclaimer: I work for Vercel, one of the static hosts in this list :)
- robjan 6y ago
  It seems like primarily an affiliate site so not sure how well the article has been researched.
- kevincox 6y ago
  FWIW I don't want them to build my source. If your job is to serve my files just serve them. All of these CI+CDN startups have some build environment that is hopefully good enough but is eventually going to be lacking an important program or library. I much prefer using a dedicated CI solution for CI and a dedicated CDN solution for the CDN. It's not like the integration is hard. Just tar up some files or rsync and send them to the CDN.
vezycash 6y ago
Placing S3 above Netlify? I sincerely hope they are earning commissions from that biased rating.
- shiftpgdn 6y ago
  Netlify users are soon going to have the reality of SV venture capital money crash down on their head when investors decide they need to see a return on their 120 million dollar series A round.
  - dubcanada 6y ago
    They've already started, their free plan is nowhere near what it used to be 1-2 years ago. And they've redone their pricing about 3 times in the past year.
- pier25 6y ago
  I don't think these are in any particular order.
cxr 6y ago
I don't see it ever described in these terms, but any of the Solid pod providers that show up are equipped by default to host a static site. It's true that if the host uses the reference server implementation then your landing page gives you and your visitors a baroque and confusing data browser, but you can drop your own index.html into the root and you're good. Pros: It's more or less straightforward HTTP, with no separately advertised, out-of-band endpoint; you POST or PUT to some URL, and then your content exists at that place. You can even add ACLs for other people (if you can manage to figure out how they work). It's slightly-more-than-static if you want, so you could have such things as a 90s era guest book or hitcounter for "free". Cons: most instances advertise no stability guarantees, and no host I've seen supports any kind of CNAME/ALIAS for custom domains There's also 5apps.com. Pros: It's been around for a while, and the people seem very committed to keeping it around longer still Cons: Access to the full plan is free for FOSS, but if you're not FOSS then using a custom domain requires at a minimum the $3/month paid plan, with metering and tiers that go up from there
p1mrx 6y ago
This would be more useful if it listed which providers support IPv6.
pier25 6y ago
Heroku is not even close to being an alternative. Their free dynos sleep after 30 mins of inactivity.
- dubcanada 6y ago
  You can just setup a free website monitor or something to ping the site every 5 minutes to prevent that.
  - JamesSwift 6y ago
    This isn't as much of a free lunch as it used to be back in the day. Heroku modified its method for gifting "free hours" and so there is a possibility that your dynos wont actually run when you need them to if you are preventing them from sleeping. https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/free-dyno-hours https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/free-dyno-hours
  - pier25 6y ago
    True, but why even do that when you have Netlify/Vercel/Firebase giving you a better service for free? For example, with Heroku you don't get a CDN. You can setup Cloudflare but it's an extra step. If you're setting up a SPA you don't get re-routes to index.html either.
    - dubcanada 6y ago
      I am certainly not pro this website, in fact this website seems to basically just be full of Buzzfeed type keyword stuffed articles about nothing. But I was just adding on if you did want to do this, you certainly could. Why would you? Heroku does have a lot of very nice components on it that can make it appealing for someone already using Heroku. But I agree, Netlify/others would be better.
every 6y ago
There is also the Super Dimensional Fortress[1] that's been around for over 40 years. The basic membership is free and even the top of the line MetaARPA[2] with access to the MetaArray[3] is ridiculously inexpensive... [1] http://sdf.org/ http://sdf.org/ [2] https://sdf.org/?join https://sdf.org/?join [3] https://sdf.org/?tutorials/metaarray https://sdf.org/?tutorials/metaarray

Beware inaccurate info: In the first bullet: AWS is completely free for the first year of use, after that, you get charged for what you use. At a minimum, that needs a disclaimer that there is a fairy generous but not unlimited free tier to be right.

adoxyz 6y ago
A lot of the other providers that are free do have fair use restrictions (albeit they are very generous) that you may run up against if your site blows up.
- wolco 6y ago
  Amazon doesn't belong on the list because it's a limited trial one year. Plus if you go over the limits you are charged. You can game some free resources over the trial period if you are careful. Not the best for set and forget.
jtbayly 6y ago
The details are in the article (at least now).
- robrtsql 6y ago
  That's true. However, I think the phrase "completely free" is misleading since the truth is that it's free until you accidentally use too much--which isn't something you have all that much control over if you're hosting a static website on S3.

tengbretson 6y ago

This article is just for static sites, but does anyone have experience with an SPA on gitlab pages? Do you have to do the same 404 redirect dance in order to get routing to work like with GitHub pages?

walterbell 6y ago

Neocities is both free and community funded, 1GB storage, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeoCities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeoCities > Neocities (a portmanteau of the prefix neo- and GeoCities) is a free web hosting service. Offering 1 GB of storage space and no server-side scripting, the service's expressed goal is to revive the support of "creativity and free expression" provided by GeoCities

cxr 6y ago
Note that NeoCities only offers custom domains for "supporters"; the free tier requires you use a .neocities.org domain.
- doublerabbit 6y ago
  .angelfire.com - Those were the days. Surprised to see Lycos still around.
  - 101008 6y ago
    Tripod.com too
- walterbell 6y ago
  > You also have to use the web-based editor/uploader if you're not on the paid plan You can use their CLI for uploads. It's based on Ruby and can be invoked via a git hook. https://neocities.org/cli https://neocities.org/cli
  - cxr 6y ago
    Thanks for the correction. I've edited my comment to remove that claim.

gen3 6y ago

I’ve used github pages for my personal website with custom domain for years. My site is fronted by cloudflare. This was initially done because github pages didn’t come with SSL. It’s honestly worked really well, and was great for a student with no budget.

styfle 6y ago

The order seems arbitrary, why not put the best options first? If I were building a static website in 2020, I would expect my provider to not only host the static files, but build from source when I `git push`. That narrows down the list to 5 so I would put those at the top. Second, I would expect the products that don't come with static hosting out of the box to be at the bottom of the list. For example, number 4 says "Heroku is free for non-commercial apps. It doesn’t offer hosting for static websites out-of-the-box but need some hacky tricks". Disclaimer: I work for Vercel, one of the static hosts in this list :)

robjan 6y ago
It seems like primarily an affiliate site so not sure how well the article has been researched.
kevincox 6y ago
FWIW I don't want them to build my source. If your job is to serve my files just serve them. All of these CI+CDN startups have some build environment that is hopefully good enough but is eventually going to be lacking an important program or library. I much prefer using a dedicated CI solution for CI and a dedicated CDN solution for the CDN. It's not like the integration is hard. Just tar up some files or rsync and send them to the CDN.

vezycash 6y ago

Placing S3 above Netlify? I sincerely hope they are earning commissions from that biased rating.

shiftpgdn 6y ago
Netlify users are soon going to have the reality of SV venture capital money crash down on their head when investors decide they need to see a return on their 120 million dollar series A round.
- dubcanada 6y ago
  They've already started, their free plan is nowhere near what it used to be 1-2 years ago. And they've redone their pricing about 3 times in the past year.
pier25 6y ago
I don't think these are in any particular order.

cxr 6y ago

I don't see it ever described in these terms, but any of the Solid pod providers that show up are equipped by default to host a static site. It's true that if the host uses the reference server implementation then your landing page gives you and your visitors a baroque and confusing data browser, but you can drop your own index.html into the root and you're good. Pros: It's more or less straightforward HTTP, with no separately advertised, out-of-band endpoint; you POST or PUT to some URL, and then your content exists at that place. You can even add ACLs for other people (if you can manage to figure out how they work). It's slightly-more-than-static if you want, so you could have such things as a 90s era guest book or hitcounter for "free". Cons: most instances advertise no stability guarantees, and no host I've seen supports any kind of CNAME/ALIAS for custom domains There's also 5apps.com. Pros: It's been around for a while, and the people seem very committed to keeping it around longer still Cons: Access to the full plan is free for FOSS, but if you're not FOSS then using a custom domain requires at a minimum the $3/month paid plan, with metering and tiers that go up from there

p1mrx 6y ago

This would be more useful if it listed which providers support IPv6.

pier25 6y ago

Heroku is not even close to being an alternative. Their free dynos sleep after 30 mins of inactivity.

dubcanada 6y ago
You can just setup a free website monitor or something to ping the site every 5 minutes to prevent that.
- JamesSwift 6y ago
  This isn't as much of a free lunch as it used to be back in the day. Heroku modified its method for gifting "free hours" and so there is a possibility that your dynos wont actually run when you need them to if you are preventing them from sleeping. https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/free-dyno-hours https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/free-dyno-hours
- pier25 6y ago
  True, but why even do that when you have Netlify/Vercel/Firebase giving you a better service for free? For example, with Heroku you don't get a CDN. You can setup Cloudflare but it's an extra step. If you're setting up a SPA you don't get re-routes to index.html either.
  - dubcanada 6y ago
    I am certainly not pro this website, in fact this website seems to basically just be full of Buzzfeed type keyword stuffed articles about nothing. But I was just adding on if you did want to do this, you certainly could. Why would you? Heroku does have a lot of very nice components on it that can make it appealing for someone already using Heroku. But I agree, Netlify/others would be better.

every 6y ago

There is also the Super Dimensional Fortress[1] that's been around for over 40 years. The basic membership is free and even the top of the line MetaARPA[2] with access to the MetaArray[3] is ridiculously inexpensive... [1] http://sdf.org/ http://sdf.org/ [2] https://sdf.org/?join https://sdf.org/?join [3] https://sdf.org/?tutorials/metaarray https://sdf.org/?tutorials/metaarray