4 Best Free Static Website Hosting Services
Host a static website, blog or portfolio for free. Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, Netlify and GitHub Pages compared: bandwidth, builds and commercial use.
Here is a list of best free static website hosting services. A static website is made of plain HTML, CSS, JavaScript and image files, with no server-side code running on each visit. Blogs, portfolios, documentation and landing pages built with Astro, Hugo, Jekyll, Eleventy or a plain HTML editor all fit this description.
Static sites are cheap to serve, so several big platforms host them for free, including a free HTTPS certificate, custom domain support and automatic deploys from GitHub. The differences are in bandwidth limits, build limits and whether you may use the free plan for a business.
Top Pick:
Cloudflare Pages is the best free option for most people. Static bandwidth is not metered, there are no commercial-use restrictions on the free plan, and 500 builds per month is plenty for a personal site.
Comparison Table:
| Service | Free bandwidth | Free builds / deploys | Commercial use on free plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Pages | Unmetered for static files | 500 builds per month | ✓ |
| Vercel | 100GB per month | Unlimited deployments | x (non-commercial only) |
| Netlify | Shared 300 credits per month | Shared 300 credits per month | ✓ |
| GitHub Pages | 100GB per month (soft limit) | 10 builds per hour (soft limit) | x (no online business or e-commerce) |
Cloudflare Pages
Cloudflare Pages deploys your site to Cloudflare’s global network straight from a GitHub or GitLab repository, or from a folder you upload. The free plan includes 500 builds per month (one at a time), up to 20,000 files per site, files up to 25MB each and up to 100 custom domains per project. Requests for static files are not metered.
If you need a bit of server logic, such as a contact form, Pages Functions run on Cloudflare Workers, whose free tier includes 100,000 requests per day.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Static bandwidth not metered | 20,000-file limit per site |
| Commercial use allowed | Only one build at a time |
| Fast global network and free SSL |
Vercel
Vercel is the company behind Next.js, and its free Hobby plan is the smoothest way to host a Next.js site. It includes 100GB of fast data transfer per month, 1 million function invocations per month, unlimited deployments and automatic preview URLs for every pull request.
The catch: the Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use only. A company site, client project or site that earns money needs the paid Pro plan. Hobby limits are also hard caps rather than pay-as-you-go.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Best support for Next.js | Non-commercial use only |
| Preview deployments for every pull request | 100GB bandwidth cap |
| Generous serverless function allowance |
Netlify
Netlify helped popularize this style of hosting. It now uses a credit-based free plan: you get 300 credits per month, shared between production deploys (15 credits each), bandwidth (20 credits per GB) and web requests (2 credits per 10,000). The free plan is a hard limit with no option to buy extra credits, so metered features stop until the next cycle once you use them up.
In practice that is about 15GB of bandwidth, or around 20 production deploys, per month. Netlify still has useful built-ins such as form handling, custom domains with SSL and deploy previews.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Custom domains with free SSL | Small effective bandwidth on the free plan |
| Built-in forms and deploy previews | Deploys and bandwidth draw on one credit pool |
| Commercial use allowed | Features stop when credits run out |
GitHub Pages
GitHub Pages publishes a website straight from a GitHub repository. It supports custom domains with HTTPS and can build Jekyll sites automatically, or any other generator through GitHub Actions. The published site may be up to 1GB, with a soft bandwidth limit of 100GB per month and a soft limit of 10 builds per hour (this does not apply to custom Actions workflows).
GitHub’s terms say Pages is not meant to run an online business, an e-commerce site or a commercial software service, so it is best for personal sites, open-source project pages and documentation.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free and built into GitHub | No online business or e-commerce use |
| Custom domains with HTTPS | 1GB site size limit |
| Works with any generator through GitHub Actions | Static files only, no functions |
When to Move to Paid Hosting:
Free static hosting stops being enough when your site needs things that only a server can do:
- WordPress or another PHP app, which needs PHP and a MySQL database on every request.
- Email on your own domain, such as [email protected], with real mailboxes rather than forwarding.
- Server-side code that goes beyond small serverless functions, like a shop, a membership area or a booking system.
At that point a cheap shared hosting plan is usually the simplest step up. Hostinger is one of the lowest-priced options: at the time of writing its Premium plan costs $2.99/month for up to 3 websites, with a free domain for the first year and mailboxes included. The catch is that this price needs a 48-month prepayment and renews at $10.99/month, so compare the full-term cost, not just the monthly figure. See Hostinger plans.
The Hostinger link is an affiliate link. See our affiliate disclaimer.
Final Thoughts:
For a free static site in 2026, Cloudflare Pages gives the most room to grow and allows commercial use. Vercel is the best fit for personal Next.js projects, GitHub Pages is perfect for open-source documentation, and Netlify works well for small sites that need its built-in forms.
