[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?
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       Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?
        
       This is more of a thought experiment, I know a multitude of ways to
       do this which require loads of setup, jumping through AWS hoops,
       etc. I'd like ideally way to deploy to a hosted service with a
       single command. Imagine Heroku but even easier.
        
       Author : offtop5
       Score  : 126 points
       Date   : 2021-03-26 16:49 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
       | namirez wrote:
       | GitHub pages! It's free so I don't think it can get any cheaper.
        
       | dave_sid wrote:
       | Have you tried yahoo geocities?
        
       | patwolf wrote:
       | Firebase hosting work well.
        
         | lucb1e wrote:
         | Firebase as in Google's Firebase? I guess the SEO is already
         | done for you, but I'm still not sure I'd make everyone talk to
         | Google to visit my site, even if the hosting is free.
        
       | alimoeeny wrote:
       | Google Cloud run although not free is great for many situations,
       | like if your website is not static and is low traffic.
        
       | Strom wrote:
       | Google App Engine has a very generous free quota. The setup isn't
       | as easy as good old FTP, because you need to define your static
       | files in a configuration file. Once the config is written the
       | deployment is a single command though.
       | 
       | https://cloud.google.com/appengine
        
         | modeless wrote:
         | The free bandwidth quota isn't enormous, but if you put
         | Cloudflare in front then you're good for practically unlimited
         | free traffic. App Engine is overkill for a completely static
         | site but it's great for something that is mostly static with
         | one or two things that change.
        
         | ZephyrBlu wrote:
         | I think you're better off using bucket storage rather than App
         | Engine for a static site.
        
         | nocommandline wrote:
         | >>> The setup isn't as easy as good old FTP, because you need
         | to define your static files in a configuration file.<<<
         | 
         | Are you referring to specifying the path to your static
         | folder/directory in your app.yaml file? If so, that doesn't
         | seem so difficult to me.
         | 
         | Yes, you're right - the deployment is a single command for
         | something as simple as a static website until the next time you
         | need to make changes (then you'll have to root around your
         | terminal again) or you decide to upgrade from static to
         | something a bit more complex. Shameless plug here - my site,
         | https://nocommandline.com, allows you to just select and click
         | deploy; no routing around in terminal/commandline.
        
       | tomduncalf wrote:
       | surge.sh is quite nice, mainly because you just run the command
       | from your "dist" directory, press enter a couple of times, and
       | it's uploaded.
       | 
       | If you want a more CI type service (i.e. you push your code and
       | it builds on the cloud, rather than you build it locally - or it
       | requires no build), I've found Netlify pretty good.
       | 
       | Was using Vercel for a Next.js project recently, quite nice
       | experience but it randomly started timing out about 50% of builds
       | and their support were unwilling to help without a minimal repro
       | - fair enough, but I was on a deadline so switched to Netlify,
       | which built the site with no issues.
       | 
       | Will try out Cloudflare Pages next based on the positive comments
       | in here!
        
       | ptk921 wrote:
       | I continue to be a big fan of surge [1]. A number of toy
       | projects/demos of mine have been developed using create-react-
       | app, rendered to static files, then deployed via surge.
       | 
       | [1] = https://surge.sh/
        
         | subpixel wrote:
         | Git project? Netlify. Not a git project? Surge!
        
       | cube2222 wrote:
       | GitHub Pages are probably the easiest to work with, with node
       | modules built for easy one-command publishing.
       | 
       | Though for production I'd probably use S3+Cloudfront.
        
         | TranquilMarmot wrote:
         | Also auto-publishing on pushes to a specific branch with GitHub
         | actions is really awesome.
        
       | _wldu wrote:
       | Hugo, nearly free speech and a Makefile.
        
       | greg5green wrote:
       | I'd say Digital Ocean's newish Apps platform. Static sites are
       | free and they can run a build step for you (still free).
        
       | mobilio wrote:
       | I'm using an AwardSpace [0] because they offer free hosting with
       | PHP/MySQL and other features for free. Best is that they are over
       | 15 years on market. For alternatives there is Firebase Hosting
       | [1] that is also great since it's running on Google
       | infrastructure.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.awardspace.com [1]
       | https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | johnklos wrote:
       | Just start bozohttpd.
        
       | jboynyc wrote:
       | Take a look at sourcehut pages (srht.site) too.
        
       | PaywallBuster wrote:
       | Cloudflare Pages
        
       | taleodor wrote:
       | Cheapest would be Google App Engine - see more detailed
       | comparison here - https://worklifenotes.com/2020/05/24/google-
       | app-engine-githu...
        
       | lcfcjs wrote:
       | Github pages is pretty straightforward and free.
        
       | pgroves wrote:
       | I have my site in an S3 bucket with the static-site flag
       | activated. It would not win for 'easiest'. However, it's the only
       | thing in my personal AWS account right now and my monthly bill is
       | $0.83
        
         | crazypython wrote:
         | An S3 bucket is intended as storage, not retrieval. Downloading
         | from S3 means grabbing shards. You should put a proper CDN,
         | like CloudFront or Cloudflare, in front.
        
           | blacha wrote:
           | You can generally query any object off s3 in a few
           | milliseconds..
           | 
           | I have a system doing 10s-100's of millions of reads a day
           | from s3 with very consistent and fast read times.
        
           | Diederich wrote:
           | > You should put a proper CDN, like CloudFront or Cloudflare,
           | in front.
           | 
           | I understand what you're saying, but why? I assume the site
           | in question is pretty low volume. What's wrong with serving
           | directly from S3?
        
             | viraptor wrote:
             | You can't get https on S3. Also many interesting headers
             | are only available via cloudfront.
             | 
             | Also you get a little bit of protection from someone
             | sending lots of traffic to make you spend $$$
        
           | erikmolin wrote:
           | Why, if his monthly bill is 83 cents, and he values his time?
           | Does not using a CDN impact performance in a crippling way
           | that neither me nor the poster you're replying to
           | understands?
        
             | crazypython wrote:
             | > Does not using a CDN impact performance in a crippling
             | way that neither me nor the poster you're replying to
             | understands?
             | 
             | It adds up to 600ms of latency for each roundtrip. A modern
             | website without link rel=preload is several roundtrips-
             | download HTML page, then do JS requests and CSS, so that's
             | ~1.2s of additional latency.
             | 
             | Because he succumbed to AWS' marketing. Surge, mentioned
             | downthread, lets you deploy a folder for free on a
             | worldwide CDN with virtually no setup.
        
             | pgroves wrote:
             | I don't think it matters much b/c of the super low volume
             | but I do have it behind Cloudflare free-tier.
        
             | philistine wrote:
             | The big gain with putting Cloudfront in front of it is you
             | can have HTTPS.
        
               | crazypython wrote:
               | HTTPS gets you better SEO and the ability to be iframe'd
               | from HTTPS sites.
        
               | speedgoose wrote:
               | And some security.
        
               | dave_sid wrote:
               | And loose 30 mins of your life you'll never get back.
               | It's just a person site.
        
               | foobar33333 wrote:
               | Browsers will light up like a christmas tree if your site
               | doesn't have https.
        
             | nrmitchi wrote:
             | Performance maybe a little bit, but IIRC you, as the owner
             | of the bucket, pay for bandwidth out.
             | 
             | Putting it being a CDN protects you (at least a little bit)
             | from the possibility of a huge bandwidth bill at the end of
             | the month if someone realizes they can attack your wallet
             | directly by trying to ddos your site.
        
               | crazypython wrote:
               | I agree- AWS bandwidth out is literally 100 times more
               | expensive than CDN and VPN bandwidth out.
        
               | sitzkrieg wrote:
               | indeed, not to mention generous bandwidth rates on vps
               | providers too
        
           | dave_sid wrote:
           | Pfffffft. It's probably a personal site with 10 visitors a
           | week. Let's step back a little here.
        
             | pgroves wrote:
             | This is correct. Why would I put any more effort into it?
        
             | cphajduk wrote:
             | And 9 of them are just bots.
        
             | gabeio wrote:
             | Cloudflare at minimum it's free as well and will protect
             | you from bad actors which will save you $ if someone starts
             | an infinite loop requesting your site.
        
             | erichurkman wrote:
             | Let's be real here.
             | 
             | He clearly needs kubernetes.
        
               | dave_sid wrote:
               | Hahahaha
        
         | banana_giraffe wrote:
         | Cheapest however, is out the window.
         | 
         | I mean, if there's a chance, however remote, that you might end
         | up as the #1 of reddit or whatever, stay away from S3. Your
         | site won't go down, but oh god, you pay for that.
        
       | crazypython wrote:
       | https://surge.sh
       | 
       | Free.                   npx surge folder
        
       | calderarrow wrote:
       | Vercel. Sign in with Github, push and it's deployed. Probably the
       | best Developer Experience I've ever had.
        
       | high_byte wrote:
       | glitch.com
        
       | quickthrower2 wrote:
       | When I did this I used netlify.
       | 
       | However for my use case I now use cheap shared hosting and
       | Wordpress, because the sheer amount of plugins to solve all kinds
       | of problems is amazing.
       | 
       | One of the built in themes I think 2019 is a nice starter for a
       | modern site and with Gutenberg you can create a fairly modern
       | responsive site out of the box.
       | 
       | There is a plug-in for free that'll backup the entire
       | installation to your Google cloud and other clouds.
       | 
       | There are cache and SEO plugins for free to sort that side of
       | things out.
       | 
       | Ive not used it but there is woo commerce for shopping although I
       | wouldn't blame someone for skipping it and using shopify for ease
       | of use.
       | 
       | I also love not battling with Hugo etc. at the technical level. I
       | do not miss reading Hugo docs thinking wtf!
       | 
       | Hosting for unlimited sites is costing me about $50 a year so
       | pretty much zero.
        
       | F117-DK wrote:
       | Cloudflare Pages, or Firebase Hosting. Both can be spiced up with
       | cloud functions.
        
       | kissgyorgy wrote:
       | For free, anywhere? GitHub, GitLab, Vercel, AWS S3... Even you
       | watch can serve a decent amount of static pages/sec nowadays.
        
       | trcarney wrote:
       | Speaking of AWS, I recently deployed a gatsby web site with AWS
       | Amplify. It links to your git repo and will automatically deploy
       | when you merge to master/main. You can also deploy branches you
       | want to test out. As this was my second website I have ever
       | deployed, I was amazed at how easy it was to setup.
        
         | cpach wrote:
         | This. I can warmly recommend AWS Amplify for hosting static
         | sites. Very convenient and easy to set up.
        
       | asdev wrote:
       | Firebase hosting + Gatsby has been real easy for me
        
       | jppope wrote:
       | My Favs: - Cloudflare - AWS s3 - Github pages - Google
        
         | techrat wrote:
         | For the occasional single static page website I sometimes need
         | to have hosted for a domain, even Blogger does a pretty good
         | job.
         | 
         | Make a new blog on Blogger, switch to classic theme, edit the
         | template, delete everything in that box and cut/paste your
         | HTML. Images can be hosted by making a new blog entry,
         | uploading images to it and saving it as a draft. Once you
         | disable the Blogger top navbar, the theme as a single page
         | website is pretty transparent and works well.
        
       | stanislavb wrote:
       | There's a list on SaaSHub tracking all the recommended/mentioned
       | products here https://www.saashub.com/alternatives/post-news-
       | ycombinator-2... however, I'm wondering why
       | https://www.netlify.com/ isn't listed...
       | 
       | Please don't upvote or downvote this one. It's more like a
       | "debugging" comment.
        
       | totaldude87 wrote:
       | I host a Wordpress site on hostinger, shared hosting costs under
       | a buck per month for long term commitment .
       | 
       | No free or cheap , doesn't have much controls but can't complain
       | a lot either
        
       | mgarfias wrote:
       | I use S3's static site hosting. works great.
        
       | singhrac wrote:
       | I've tried Github pages, Netlify, and Cloudflare Pages. Moved
       | last night to the latter.
       | 
       | Github pages is fine, but the extra gh-pages branch is kind of
       | annoying. It's fairly clear (for obvious reasons) that they
       | mainly think about Jekyll users, though I had a Hugo blog there
       | for a while.
       | 
       | Netlify _sounds_ great, but in practice I ran into an annoying
       | issue that I couldn 't resolve where I had to rerun every
       | automatic build. This probably isn't really their fault but the
       | forums didn't work.
       | 
       | Cloudflare Pages kind of just worked out of the box, and since I
       | was already using it for my DNS, changing where the domain
       | pointed took a few seconds.
       | 
       | I'd suspect, if you corrected for how many issues were particular
       | to me, I'd say Cloudflare Pages ~ Netlify > Github Pages. I'm
       | kind of surprised the latter charges you for custom domains; I do
       | have to say there's more documentation for Github than any of the
       | others.
        
         | ignoramous wrote:
         | I use both pages.dev and netlify.com: pages.dev, even in open
         | beta, is a fantastic product if it suits all your needs, but
         | the limitations [0], if you hit them, are a dead-end and there
         | are no ETAs as to when some of those limitations would be
         | addressed.
         | 
         | That is _not_ the case with netlify.com which boasts a myriad
         | of features, is equally as fast, production-ready, and
         | competitively priced.
         | 
         | With pages.dev, I believe, you pay per every domain you host,
         | whilst with netlify.com, there's no cap on number of domains
         | per account, though they do charge for bandwidth (unlike
         | pages.dev).
         | 
         | Workers Sites [1] is a viable alternative and I quite prefer it
         | over pages.dev.
         | 
         | [0] https://developers.cloudflare.com/pages/platform/limits
         | 
         | [1] https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/sites
        
         | singhrac wrote:
         | I should warn that bike shedding about this distinction is
         | absolutely not worth your time if you're reading this and have
         | less than like 100 blog posts written or are running a business
         | on these sites (in which case I think you should pick Netlify).
         | Go write something.
        
           | ipaddr wrote:
           | Now you have something to write about.
        
         | florigator123 wrote:
         | Haven't tried Netlify or Cloudfare pages, but I use GH pages
         | for my personal blog (running Jekyll) and I've never seen any
         | reason to switch. You need to know how to use Git and Github,
         | but since you're reading HN you probably know these things.
         | It's really convenient to be able to just push to GH and have
         | it auto-deploy - and it's free.
         | 
         | Granted, my blog is an insignifcant site with a tiny readership
         | and I rarely update it, so if you need something more heavy
         | duty than I have no idea if GH pages is up to the task.
        
         | pydry wrote:
         | The feature that made me change from github pages to netlify
         | was 302s. Cloudflare pages doesn't seem to have that.
        
         | jacobp100 wrote:
         | I actually just went the other way. I found CF is a bit too
         | aggressive with anti-DDOS measures, and the page would not work
         | sometimes in Safari with default settings.
         | 
         | The default setup for GH Pages is not great. Jekyll is very
         | dated. But if you use GH Actions, you can build yourself a
         | pretty great setup. My site is open source at
         | https://github.com/jacobp100/jacob-does-code - there's also a
         | blog post about how the build system works.
        
         | foobar33333 wrote:
         | gitlab pages is better imo. You can use the CI to run any code
         | you want to build the static files.
        
           | gala8y wrote:
           | Also, GitLab allows business websites in GitLab pages in free
           | tier, as opposed to Netlify and Github.
           | 
           | "With GitLab Pages, you can publish static websites directly
           | from a repository in GitLab. Use for any personal or business
           | website."
        
             | lostmsu wrote:
             | GitHub allows business websites, AFAIK. Where did you get
             | the notion, that it does not?
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | https://docs.github.com/en/github/working-with-github-
               | pages/...
               | 
               | "GitHub Pages is not intended for or allowed to be used
               | as a free web hosting service to run your online
               | business, e-commerce site, or any other website that is
               | primarily directed at either facilitating commercial
               | transactions or providing commercial software as a
               | service (SaaS)."
               | 
               | Now one could read that as "don't build a SaaS on top of
               | GitHub Pages", but you could also read that as "don't
               | have business websites on GitHub Pages".
        
       | iosjunkie wrote:
       | My weekend project is to move a small personal site to Cloudflare
       | Pages[0]. Can't vouch for it yet, but it might be worth a look.
       | 
       | [0] https://pages.cloudflare.com/
        
       | gkbrk wrote:
       | Seconding the https://nearlyfreespeech.net suggestion. I used to
       | be their customer and had absolutely no complaints.
       | 
       | I have switched to BunnyCDN [1] a while back, also very happy
       | with it. Pricing is extremely cheap, and has the added benefit of
       | being able to cache anything dynamic you might add in the future.
       | 
       | [1]: https://bunny.net/
        
         | pov wrote:
         | Seconding BunnyCDN. I use it with https://lftp.yar.ru/ in
         | reverse mirror mode to upload/update my generated public/
         | folder. Easy and cheap!
        
       | peanut_worm wrote:
       | Surge.sh is probably the easiest and fastest. Host a static site
       | in one command.
       | 
       | I like Netlify for most stuff personally.
        
       | every wrote:
       | I use https://sdf.org, but then my needs are very modest...
        
       | ilaksh wrote:
       | Check out https://gemlog.blue/
        
       | tyingq wrote:
       | Cloudflare pages. The only real limit on the free plan is "500
       | builds / month". Simple is relative, of course, but if you're a
       | developer, you'll likely find it simple, and it does fit your
       | "deploy with a single command" requirement.
       | https://pages.cloudflare.com/
       | 
       | You can also tie it with the free plan for Cloudflare Workers if
       | you have some need beyond static pages.
        
         | indigodaddy wrote:
         | Cloudflare Pages will reload/redeploy on any git push right
         | (just like Netlify?) ? Just want to be sure before I try it
         | out..
        
       | leerob wrote:
       | Check out Vercel! [1] You can deploy for free, with a single
       | command, in a few minutes.
       | 
       | Disclaimer: I work at Vercel, happy to answer any questions.
       | 
       | [1]: http://vercel.com/
        
         | davidwparker wrote:
         | I've been a happy user of Netlify, Github Pages and now Vercel.
         | I'm really enjoying Vercel lately! It's been really great.
         | Recently also tested out Cloudflare Pages, but I think they
         | have a bit of work to do before they can match Vercel.
        
         | wishinghand wrote:
         | Not to bring down the mood on how easy it is for static sites
         | on Vercel, but I still get sad about it moving away from server
         | side or Docker based deploys. I really miss that workflow.
        
         | mkl wrote:
         | Your pricing page is confusing to me. There is a free tier, and
         | it says "Pay as you grow", but I can't see what the limits on
         | the free tier are or how growth is measured. How does it work?
        
         | adamhearn wrote:
         | Vercel free tier is awesome!!
        
         | adriancooney wrote:
         | Very happy Vercel user here. My default choice now -- supremely
         | simple and fast deployments with great UX.
        
         | m00dy wrote:
         | I also use Vercel. It is a good product.
         | 
         | Disclaimer: I don't work at Vercel and I'm just a regular guy
        
         | romellem wrote:
         | I will second this recommendation. I use Vercel for all my
         | static sites and have found it wonderful to work with and well
         | documented.
        
       | jokethrowaway wrote:
       | For free non commercial projects, definitely netlify (they seem
       | to imply the will remove commercial projects if they so like).
       | 
       | If it's a commercial project I don't see the point of paying a
       | premium for the nice UX, hosting static files is easy enough and
       | I don't have investors' money to waste. I would spend my money on
       | a CDN like BunnyCDN and throw a file server behind it.
        
       | trey-jones wrote:
       | If you're looking for ease of deployment I think something like
       | org-publish. But that would require some setup - anything would
       | really.
        
         | tomcam wrote:
         | How is org-publish a hosting solution? AFAIK it's a deployment
         | command
        
       | benbristow wrote:
       | Azure Static Web Apps is free at the minute, and I've heard the
       | pricing will be very reasonable once it comes out of preview (in
       | the cents/pennies probably unless you're really popular!)
       | 
       | https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/app-service/stati...
       | 
       | Would recommend giving it a bash, or you could deploy it manually
       | with Azure Blob Storage Websites and a simple deployment CI
       | pipeline.
        
       | ducharmdev wrote:
       | GitHub Pages or Netlify for sure. With either of these options,
       | your static site can be set up to deploy whenever there's new
       | commits to the specified branch.
       | 
       | Me and a friend mentor for Code Louisville, and we're able to get
       | the beginner frontend students up and running very quickly using
       | these options - they're free and much easier to use.
        
         | anm89 wrote:
         | I've been very happy with this setup for my simple personal
         | marketing site.
        
         | linkdd wrote:
         | I discovered Netlify through Netlify CMS. I had a pretty bad
         | opinion about Netlify CMS, so I was pretty sure Netlify was
         | going to be at least as bad.
         | 
         | Damn, I have never been so wrong:                 - the
         | interface is so intuitive I never opened the documentation
         | - this is FAST (the bottleneck to see my website live is now my
         | browser cache)       - no need to create a Github Actions
         | pipeline to deploy, just say "hey, my repo is here"       -
         | automatically integrated with Let's Encrypt for custom domains
         | - deploy previews!!!
         | 
         | And so much more.
        
           | Kaze404 wrote:
           | My favorite feature is automatic deployment of pull requests.
           | I love it, and I wish there was something as cheap and easy
           | for backend services as well. Though I guess it's not too
           | necessary if you implement testing properly :p
        
             | villasv wrote:
             | Heroku has offered branch previews for a while now
             | 
             | Edit: they call it Review Apps
             | (https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/github-integration-
             | rev...)
        
             | linkdd wrote:
             | LayerCI[1] maybe?
             | 
             | [1] - https://layerci.com/
        
               | Kaze404 wrote:
               | This looks almost too good to be true from the docs.
               | Thank you, I'll check it out.
        
         | bovermyer wrote:
         | I swear by Netlify. It's fantastic, and I use it for several
         | sites, not least of which is my own personal site.
         | 
         | One of their neat features is the ability to spin up "pull
         | request sites" automatically, so you can share versions of your
         | site with stakeholders before it's made live.
        
         | gabriel897 wrote:
         | +1 I have been using Netlify to host 3 static sites for many
         | months now. Have had 0 issues. Set up took <15 minutes. Making
         | changes is a breeze.
        
         | Sodman wrote:
         | I see the "GitHub Pages" suggested a lot whenever this question
         | comes up, but it's worth noting that it's against their ToS[0]
         | to use it for commercial purposes:
         | 
         | "GitHub Pages is not intended for or allowed to be used as a
         | free web hosting service to run your online business,
         | e-commerce site, or any other website that is primarily
         | directed at either facilitating commercial transactions or
         | providing commercial software as a service (SaaS)."
         | 
         | So it's great if you want to host a personal site / blog or
         | some other non-revenue-generating website, but for anything
         | more than that you could run into issues.
         | 
         | [0] https://docs.github.com/en/github/working-with-github-
         | pages/...
        
           | serial_dev wrote:
           | Anyone got issues with this?
           | 
           | In my opinion, there are some cases where it is a gray area:
           | professional portfolio, case studies website with an email
           | collection form, blog posts where you mention that you are a
           | freelancer, a site where you link to your YouTube videos,
           | some simple JavaScript app that don't require a backend but
           | might make some money with ads...
           | 
           | So I'm just wondering how often they strike down at people
           | who operate in this gray area.
        
         | SwiftyBug wrote:
         | Also you can deploy your `public` folder to Netlify simply by
         | drag-and-drop. I love this.
        
       | nonamenoslogan wrote:
       | I host my .org on Github Pages.
        
       | pmlnr wrote:
       | FTP-it to a friends' server.
        
         | lucb1e wrote:
         | Seconded. I offered a container to many friends but very few
         | actually take me up on the offer. Server communities are fun,
         | why pay a stranger when you can build something with a friend?
        
       | maxk42 wrote:
       | The most popular currently is probably https://www.netlify.com/ -
       | 100% free.
       | 
       | If AWS + CloudFront is too difficult and you don't mind spending
       | a few bucks, it's pretty easy to get started with LightSail -
       | about $3.50 a month.
        
         | enhdless wrote:
         | Specifically Netlify Drop: https://app.netlify.com/drop
         | 
         | You don't even need to create an account, just upload a zip of
         | your files.
        
           | mcintyre1994 wrote:
           | You don't even have to zip it!
        
       | BenoitP wrote:
       | > jumping through AWS hoops
       | 
       | I found S3 static hosting to be fairly straightforward. Once set
       | up, a single `aws s3 sync . s3://my-bucket/path` updates the
       | content.
        
         | tobilg wrote:
         | You might have a look at https://github.com/tobilg/serverless-
         | aws-static-websites to get a single command deploy including
         | CDN and a domain
        
         | framecowbird wrote:
         | Agreed! It's super easy
        
           | PradeetPatel wrote:
           | It was observed that setting up let's encrypt certs on s3
           | static sites can be a unique challenge
        
         | starbugs wrote:
         | I suggest putting Cloudflare in front of it. I have virtually
         | no AWS costs with S3 that way. If you don't mind that
         | Cloudflare + S3 means it's not fully end to end encrypted.
        
       | second--shift wrote:
       | For the extra $1-2/mo, I think a $5 DigitalOcean ubuntu/similar
       | droplet provides a ton of value, above and beyond just hosting a
       | "static" site at the cheapest place for less. Want email too? ez.
       | Virtual Hosts? ez. SOCKs proxy in the cloud? literally built in.
        
         | alexjplant wrote:
         | I got away from self-hosted mail a few years ago and haven't
         | looked back. There are a few flexible privacy-forward options
         | on the market now (FastMail, Proton) and I don't have to worry
         | about configuring DMARC/DKIM/SPF, Postfix milters,
         | Horde/Roundcube, Courier, secure connection negotiation, X.509
         | certificates, or any of the other headaches associated with a
         | quasi-legacy technology like e-mail.
        
         | sitzkrieg wrote:
         | while i agree, self hosting email is fraught with traps
        
       | aequitas wrote:
       | Check with your ISP, they often offer some 10 or sometimes 50! MB
       | of free space to host your homepage and images under an account
       | url, eg: http://example.com/~you. Uploading is easy, just FTP
       | your files to their server and your done!
       | 
       | I miss the old days :(
        
         | Symbiote wrote:
         | The in-between days (after dial-up ISPs, but before "cloud"
         | meant people forgot they could do things themselves) was to
         | host the website on your own computer. For example, an old
         | laptop, a Raspberry Pi, or an always-on-anyway desktop.
         | 
         | I host my personal site this way.
         | 
         | I also host about 100 mostly-static mostly-low-use websites at
         | work similarly: with Apache on a couple of VMs. They are more
         | reliable than the free versions of Netlify etc, and the systems
         | work to maintain 100 static websites is little different to
         | maintaining 5 static websites.
        
           | warent wrote:
           | I'm not sure how you do this unless you have a static IP
           | somehow? In my experience ISPs don't offer that to
           | residential clients
        
             | tenebrisalietum wrote:
             | There are "Dynamic DNS" services (a good free one used to
             | be DynDNS in the 00's) that will take an API call from your
             | home system and update a DNS with it.
             | 
             | Many routers have support for this and if your router runs
             | dhcpcd you can tell it to issue the call when it renews the
             | DHCP lease from your ISP, or simply cron job it.
        
               | derefr wrote:
               | Note that you don't need a marketed-as-"dynamic DNS"
               | provider to have dynamic DNS. You just need a DNS
               | provider with an API.
               | 
               | Cloudflare has a DNS API. So if you search "Cloudflare
               | DDNS" you'll find five or six different Github projects
               | (some binaries, some scripts) you can run on any box in
               | your house (maybe a Pi?) that'll do your DDNS through
               | them.
               | 
               | (You don't need your router to run a DDNS client, even
               | though routers make it seem like a router-exclusive
               | feature. The only thing your router knows that your LAN
               | doesn't is your network's external IP address. But a DDNS
               | client can just hit an external reflector endpoint for
               | that.)
        
               | garaetjjte wrote:
               | From my experience most ISPs don't give publicly routable
               | addresses anymore, just throwing everybody behind CGNAT
               | (currently I pay extra 3$ monthly fee for static routable
               | IP, but not all providers offer it). And IPv6 is usually
               | _still_ not deployed.
        
               | greg5green wrote:
               | In the US, it's pretty rare to be behind CGNAT or not
               | have IPv6. We're lucky in that regard.
        
             | ForHackernews wrote:
             | Some ISPs do offer static IPs to residentials users (many
             | of the top 10 here
             | https://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top10.php)
             | 
             | As IPv6 becomes more widely adopted, there will be no need
             | to conserve IP addresses and everyone can be allocated a
             | block of them.
        
             | 29083011397778 wrote:
             | They don't, but my ISP-provided modem/router combo has
             | built-in integration with a dynamcic DNS service. If your
             | domain name follows whatever your IP is, it's close enough
             | to static (at least for my uses)
        
               | foobar33333 wrote:
               | Alternatively, you can use cron/systemd timers to update
               | the domain minutely.
        
         | tgiba wrote:
         | OVH offers 10MB hosting when you get a domain with them. With
         | FTP access.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | AlchemistCamp wrote:
       | https://render.com (lead by early Stripe infra employee!)
        
         | nknealk wrote:
         | Seconding render. I host a Hugo site with them. Their free tier
         | is pretty feature-rich and I love the automated builds. My site
         | is set up so that any push to the main branch on a private
         | github repo gets automatically checked out, compiled to HTML,
         | and updated on their CDN.
        
       | gibbonsd1 wrote:
       | https://twitter.com/daringdanz/status/1214618864643764224
        
       | NicoJuicy wrote:
       | Has anyone tested out netlify vs cloudflare pages?
        
       | m-app wrote:
       | Depends on what you may already have! I was looking for something
       | similar the other day, and remembered that I already had some
       | redirects setup under my custom Fastmail domain; turns out they
       | also allow you to host static HTML. You can even generate a
       | dedicated FTP login to automate uploading. This specific case
       | might not apply to you, but perhaps you're already paying for
       | another service that also offers something like this?
        
       | ForHackernews wrote:
       | My ISP gives me 10MB of free hosting with FTP access.
       | 
       | Doesn't get much simpler than:
       | 
       | ftp-upload -h myisp.net index.html
        
       | _nhh wrote:
       | Simple Webhosting. Cheap, reliable and unbreakable.
       | 
       | Single command deployment with rsync.
       | 
       | Plus you get serverless functionality for free with php scripts.
       | Just place it in a folder and access it via browser.
       | 
       | Magic.
        
       | jdmg94 wrote:
       | Vercel is the way to go
        
       | jpxw wrote:
       | S3 bucket with cloudfront in front. Route 53 for DNS.
       | 
       | Not sure if it's the cheapest way to do it, but it seems
       | extremely cheap. Likewise not sure if it's the easiest way to do
       | it, but it seems easy now it's set up - everything is in one
       | place.
       | 
       | IIRC Cloudfront <-> S3 data transfer has quite a generous free
       | tier.
       | 
       | The only thing I worry about is whether uploading objects is
       | expensive, and invalidation. But it's not been (noticeably) an
       | issue so far.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | jetpackjoe wrote:
       | I user https://render.com for my dynamic ($7/month) and static
       | (free) sites.
       | 
       | You specify a build command (ex. `npm run build`), and a
       | directory (ex. `_site/`) and it will build and host it for you.
       | It can automatically deploy on git events, or via web hook, or
       | manually (button push). SSL/custom domains are also free and very
       | easy to setup.
       | 
       | I stan render.
        
         | zokier wrote:
         | Is render like heroku for the dynamic stuff? Seems very similar
         | offering
        
       | zck wrote:
       | I use https://nearlyfreespeech.net for my static site.
       | 
       | It isn't free -- it is pretty cheap -- but it has a lot going for
       | it. It requires no custom tooling -- I upload via rsync. This
       | makes it trivial to migrate to a new provider if necessary.
       | 
       | I develop my site locally, then rsync it up. I have a custom
       | domain pointed at the site, and also a custom .htaccess, so I
       | have a good amount of control over the site. I do things like
       | serve html without the .html filetype in the url; e.g.
       | https://zck.org/emacsconf2020 is stored on the server as
       | emacsconf2020.html . (I do this so Emacs recognizes the files as
       | html, but keeps the urls clean).
       | 
       | It's a nice tool if you want to get a little involved in your
       | setup, without getting wrapped up in proprietary tooling. It does
       | charge for what you use, so it's not a great site if you are
       | going to host Blu-ray images that get downloaded from everyone on
       | HN.
        
         | zaphod4prez wrote:
         | I'm a huge fan of NearlyFreeSpeech as well! Its super cheap,
         | has a great user-forum, and just... feels like something I can
         | wrap my head around easily. Love it
        
         | RodgerTheGreat wrote:
         | I have also used nearlyfreespeech for years, and I'm very
         | satisfied with the price model and clear, easy-to-use account
         | management pages.
         | 
         | My site is entirely statically-served; I have one script for
         | rebuilding my local copy and a second for rsyncing to my NFS
         | host.
        
         | yojo wrote:
         | I also used/loved NFSN, but I have a habit of neglecting pages
         | for years. I have had more than one site go dark for months
         | before I realized they'd run out of budget. Now I use GH pages
         | so I don't have to think about it.
         | 
         | If you're actively updating (or just better organized), NFSN is
         | a good choice
        
           | RodgerTheGreat wrote:
           | For the record, they do have support for email warnings when
           | your balance drops below various thresholds- it's right on
           | the account dashboard.
        
         | dwohnitmok wrote:
         | Yep NFSN is great. If you have a bunch of static files it's
         | really just `rsync myfiles
         | mywebsite@ssh.phx.nearlyfreespeech.net:` and you're done. No
         | set up, no nothing.
        
           | zck wrote:
           | Yeah! The command I use is: `rsync --recursive -vv --delete
           | --filter="protect /.well-known" /path/to/site/on/local/box
           | user_site@ssh.phx.nearlyfreespeech.net:/home/public/`
           | 
           | I add `--delete` to clean up any files I might've created on
           | the box (e.g., to test .htaccess), and then
           | `--filter="protect /.well-known" so that I keep any files
           | related to serving as https.
        
       | tebbers wrote:
       | Netlify! I use it for holding pages for client websites. Quick
       | upload of a folder containing an index.html and a stylesheet and
       | off you go.
        
         | kevincox wrote:
         | Netlify also provides an endpoint to deploy a new version with
         | a single HTTP POST of a zip file if you ever want to start
         | scripting deploys.
        
       | Chris2048 wrote:
       | I guess cheap and easy are opposite directions in a way, but if
       | you are totally static, I guess a Digital-Ocean instance isn't
       | too difficult, with some leeway to improve the response-time over
       | time; Just slap a Nginx or something on it, serve up the statics,
       | and maybe establish a way to upload stuff (scp?), Just keep hold
       | of backups (docker images, configs/dotfiles, and actual content),
       | put good protection on the droplets (they are targets for
       | hacking).
       | 
       | The benefit is that it's just a linux distro of your choice, so
       | you can use whatever you are familiar with, _and_ there is scope
       | to add non-static service if needs be.
        
         | armonraphiel wrote:
         | They have a managed service for folks with docker instances.
         | 
         | You also get a few free static sites as well
         | https://www.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/
        
       | hparadise wrote:
       | I really like Render
        
       | yannikyeo wrote:
       | Digital Ocean App Platform gives 3 free static sites.
        
       | j-rom wrote:
       | I used to use Heroku for side projects and I recently discovered
       | Netlify and it is definitely super easy to get set up and deploy.
        
       | openfuture wrote:
       | I use pinata to pin an ipfs hash and then a public gateway
       | (currently using cloudflare). It's free and a fun programming
       | assignment to script the pinata and DNS APIs so that I can update
       | my site.
        
       | talawahtech wrote:
       | Check out Cloudflare Pages: https://pages.cloudflare.com/
        
       | hokumguru wrote:
       | Vercel is so great
        
       | felipemesquita wrote:
       | Cloudflare pages offers unlimited sites, requests and bandwidth
       | for free (limited to 500 bilds per month)
       | https://pages.cloudflare.com/
        
       | Aperocky wrote:
       | I wouldn't say jumping through AWS hoop is loads of setup.. but I
       | have 2 static sites with domain setup on AWS with S3 buckets and
       | route53 and they cost about $3 per month in total.
       | 
       | Domain costs are separate but I don't think that belong here.
        
       | johnmurch wrote:
       | https://workers.cloudflare.com/
        
         | stephenmcirl77 wrote:
         | Plus Cloudflare Pages is in beta too, CloudFlares JAMStack
         | offering to compete with the Netlify and Vercels of the world.
         | https://pages.cloudflare.com/
        
       | bluishgreen wrote:
       | Gatsby with Netlify
        
       | lawwantsin17 wrote:
       | Just a reminder you can host a static site or any other kind of
       | site on your home computer. That's the internet folks.
        
       | ijustwanttovote wrote:
       | I'm trying out Cloudflare Pages, it's pretty good so far.
        
       | kpats wrote:
       | If you want a pre-configured way to publish your notes or digital
       | garden, Dendron's got an easy to use 1-click publish:
       | https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/53de5c1e-b20c-4adc-ae48-e1659e...
        
       | polyterative wrote:
       | firebase hosting
        
       | treeface9000 wrote:
       | Netlify is really easy. Just drag and drop your static site's
       | folder.
        
       | rabbitsfoot8 wrote:
       | I created https://tiiny.host - might be exactly what you're
       | looking for. Command line tool coming soon!
        
       | jsilence wrote:
       | Regarding some cost free solutions mentioned here: how does the
       | saying 'if it is free, then you are the product' hold up?
        
         | snicker7 wrote:
         | Likely a loss leader, since "free static site hosting" is
         | usually not the main product.
        
         | dalmo3 wrote:
         | I suppose Netlify free users pay it back in free advertisement.
        
         | crazypython wrote:
         | surge.sh was born out of a Mozilla-sponsored project to make
         | web hosting cheaper. They are doing it for charity.
        
       | LinuxBender wrote:
       | If you mean pure html/css, then the least friction would be
       | NeoCities [1] It is free and not owned by Microsoft or Google.
       | 
       | [1] - https://neocities.org/
        
         | pwdisswordfish6 wrote:
         | You are limited to one *.neocities.org site, otherwise it's $60
         | per year.
        
         | john-doe wrote:
         | Seconded. Their CLI has all you need, even git hooks.
         | Personally I just use `neocities push .`
        
           | LolWolf wrote:
           | Thirded.
           | 
           | Use it to host my blog; free tier is good, but I really like
           | them and have really phenomenal limits, etc, so just pay
           | (even though my blog is not updated nearly as much as I'd
           | like)
        
       | amasad wrote:
       | Replit (free):
       | 
       | - Go to repl.new/html
       | 
       | - Write code
       | 
       | - Hit run, deployed!
       | 
       | - (optional) link domain
       | 
       | Docs: https://docs.replit.com/repls/web-hosting
        
       | ianopolous wrote:
       | You could host it P2P in Peergos -
       | https://peergos.org/posts/p2p-web-hosting
       | 
       | Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder
        
         | emptysongglass wrote:
         | I tried but you have a waiting list.
        
           | ianopolous wrote:
           | If you added yourself we'll onboard you soon.
        
       | purec wrote:
       | I personally use Firebase for all my static sites. Completely
       | free and fast. If you need to run some backend function they have
       | Firebase functions which is free to a certain degree too.
       | 
       | Example site: https://jeremyshaw.co.nz
       | 
       | Other than that I'm sure Github Pages and Netlify are fine, both
       | very popular options.
       | 
       | Worst case you put it on Amazon S3 and get charged a fraction of
       | a dollar every month .
        
         | BrandoElFollito wrote:
         | Except if you get hit by a DDoS.
         | 
         | The fact that you cannot put a cap on your spending is
         | infuriating (the official AWS answer is "we do not want to
         | break your business" (even if I want to)).
         | 
         | To be fair, some complaining or crying in such cases usually
         | gets your bill reversed.
        
           | villasv wrote:
           | You can, it's just very convoluted.
           | 
           | You can set up billing alarms and use alarms as triggers for
           | actions.
        
       | codebolt wrote:
       | If you have an MSDN subscription (e.g. through work), using your
       | free Azure credits to host a site is a pretty good option.
        
       | jMyles wrote:
       | NearlyFreeSpeech is an incredible service. It has honed its focus
       | on simplicity even as virtually every one of its competitors have
       | attempted to commodity complexity.
       | 
       | Don't get me wrong: I enjoy complex services as well. But for
       | simple web hosting, NearlyFreeSpeech is the best I've found, and
       | whatever is second isn't close.
        
       | fishtoaster wrote:
       | A while back I wrote a tool* to make this as easy as possible for
       | my use case: a single command to register the domain, jump
       | through all the AWS hoops, and have a live static site with ssl
       | at the end. I was pretty happy with it.
       | 
       | These days, though, I just use netlify. It's not quite one
       | command, but it's about heroku-level easy, and it gives you a lot
       | of little niceties (autodeploy whenever you push a specific git
       | branch to github, ssl, etc).
       | 
       | * https://github.com/kkuchta/scarr
        
       | datacruncher01 wrote:
       | I've played with a free .tk domain and use their framed redirect
       | (http only) to point to a itty.bitty.site page. Works
       | transparently as far as a user goes.
        
       | kioleanu wrote:
       | If you use Fastmail, it comes with static website hosting
       | included
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | skrtskrt wrote:
       | Digital Ocean Apps, you get free hosting for a couple static
       | site, you just push to the selected branch.
       | 
       | I use Hugo but they support a bunch of different types.
       | 
       | Digital Ocean is also just super easy to use in general.
        
       | bronlund wrote:
       | Check out https://render.com/
        
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