Best Free Static Website Hosting Providers - Pros and Cons of Each
written by 
Idriss Douiri
3 min read
Looking for a free and reliable way to host your static or JAMstack website? With so many hosting providers available, choosing the right one can be overwhelming. This guide compares the top 4 free static website hosting services, their pros and cons, and which best suits your needs.
What is a Static Website?
A static website doesn’t require a backend server, meaning that it can only contain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with other static assets like images and fonts.
Static websites are usually websites that don’t change frequently, they are best for your personal Portfolio or Blog. And because they are static, they load fast which means they provide better user experience and SEO.
You can either create a static website directly using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript or use a static site generator like Astrojs, Nextjs, or Jekyll.
1. Cloudflare Pages
Cloudflare Pages is a high-performance static website hosting, offering an unbeatable free trial that includes unlimited bandwidth. Powered by Cloudflare’s global CDN, your page will load instantly worldwide enhancing the user experience.
Pros:
- Access to Cloudflare’s global CDN
- Unlimited bandwidth
- total of 2 100 redirects rules
- DDoS protection included
- Free Built-in analytics
Cons:
- I can’t think of any!
2. Github pages
Github pages provide a simple and easy way to deploy your git repositories which is ideal for developers already using Github.
You can have one website under the subdomain <username>.github.io by making a repository with the same name, or multiple websites under the path <username>.github.io/<repo-name> and enabling Github pages from your repository’s settings by choosing a production branch.
This hosting solution is more suitable for deploying your project’s documentation, as GitHub has an option for deploying only the code inside the docs/ folder.
Pros:
- Supports Kekyll static site generator
- 1GB of free storage
Cons:
- Only public repos can be hosted in the free plan
- No custom build
- Can’t be used in commercial use
- No HTTP redirects
3. Vercel
Vercel is a modern and simple-to-use web hosting service, and it is also the company behind Nextjs.
While Vercel has been optimized for Nextjs, it integrates seamlessly with most modern frameworks including Astro and SvelteKit.
Pros:
- Optimized for Next.js and React applications
Cons:
- Free plan limited to non-commercial projects
4. Netlify
Netlify is a popular JAMstack hosting provider offering countless features and tools and a simple workflow, just connect it to your git repo and Netlify will do the rest.
Pros:
- All-in-one features including forms, functions, and authentication
- Clear User Interface
- Global CDN
Cons:
- Pro plans can be expensive for high-traffic sites
Best Platforms for Different Use Cases
If you can’t decide which platform to go with, here are some general use cases of each that might give you an idea of what to choose:
- For Hosting open source documentation use GitHub Pages.
- For hosting small to medium business sites use Netlify.
- For Nextjs or React-based applications use Vercel.
- For a site with high-traffic static sites use Cloudflare Pages.
