Static Site Hosting
Static site hosting serves pre-built HTML/CSS/JS files. No server-side processing at request time — the entire site is compiled during build and served as flat files from a CDN.
Why It’s Great for Free
Static hosting is the most generous free tier category because:
- Serving a flat file costs nearly nothing (no compute per request)
- CDN caching means most requests never hit origin
- Three major platforms offer genuinely unlimited or near-unlimited free tiers
Top Platforms
| Platform | Bandwidth | Builds | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| cloudflare-pages | Unlimited | 500/mo | Everything static — best all-round |
| vercel | 100 GB | 6,000/mo | Next.js / heavy build needs |
| netlify | ~30 GB (credit) | ~20/mo | Legacy projects, form handling |
| github-pages | 100 GB | 10/hr | Quick repos, personal sites |
The Winner (2026)
Cloudflare Pages — unlimited bandwidth is the killer feature. The other free tiers can be burned by a popular post on Hacker News or Reddit. Cloudflare’s unlimited egress means you don’t have to worry.
What You Can Build
- Marketing sites, landing pages
- Blogs (Hugo, Jekyll, Astro, 11ty)
- Documentation sites (Docusaurus, ReadTheDocs)
- Portfolios
- Simple web apps that call external APIs (no own backend needed)
What You Can’t Build
- Anything needing server-side rendering at request time (Next.js SSR needs Vercel)
- User authentication without an external auth service
- Server-side form handling without a third-party service (Netlify Forms is an exception)
- Backend APIs