Free static site hosting: the options, honestly
A static site is files that are sent as they are: HTML, CSS, images, maybe some JavaScript. Several good services host that for free. They differ less in price than in how you publish and what they expect of you.
| How you publish | Free plan | Own domain on free | Good to know | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Pages | Git (or GitHub's web editor) | 1 GB site, soft limit of 100 GB traffic a month | Yes | Not for running an online business or shop. Free accounts publish from public repositories. |
| Netlify | Git, drag and drop, or CLI | 300 credits a month (each deploy uses 15, each GB of traffic 20) | Yes | Built-in forms and serverless functions. When the free credits run out, sites are paused until the next month. |
| Neocities | Browser editor or CLI | 1 GB storage, 200 GB traffic a month | No ($5/month) | A friendly community of hand-made sites. Free sites have file-type limits. |
| Cloudflare Pages | Git, direct upload, or CLI | Generous | Yes | Part of Cloudflare's developer platform; best if you already use Cloudflare. |
| Pagehaus | SFTP, the browser, the API or an AI assistant | 1 site, 250 MB, 20 GB traffic a month, 50 form messages | No ($4/month) | Server Side Includes and contact forms built in. Going over a limit never charges you. |
Checked October 2026 against each service's own pricing and documentation. Plans change: check before you decide.
How to choose
- You already use Git, or want your site's history in a repository: GitHub Pages or Cloudflare Pages are hard to beat for free.
- You build with a framework (Astro, Next.js, Eleventy…) and want previews of every change: Netlify or Cloudflare Pages.
- You want to be part of a community of personal, hand-made sites: Neocities.
- You write HTML by hand and want to upload files with FileZilla or in the browser, with a contact form and a shared header without a build step: that's what Pagehaus is for.
What "free" usually leaves out
- Your own domain: free on GitHub Pages, Netlify and Cloudflare Pages; a paid upgrade on Neocities and Pagehaus. You pay the domain registrar either way.
- Forms: only some hosts receive form submissions. See contact forms without PHP.
- Commercial use: GitHub Pages doesn't allow running an online business on it. Check the terms if your site sells something.