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Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

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Re: Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

#181

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.

Is render like heroku for the dynamic stuff? Seems very similar offering

Re: Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

#182
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gitlab pages is better imo. You can use the CI to run any code you want to build the static files.

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."

GitHub allows business websites, AFAIK. Where did you get the notion, that it does not?

Re: Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

#183
post #16

My Favs: - Cloudflare - AWS s3 - Github pages - Google

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.

Re: Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

#184
post #174
post #28

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 thin…

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

For the record, they do have support for email warnings when your balance drops below various thresholds- it's right on the account dashboard.

Re: Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

#185
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

GitHub allows business websites, AFAIK. Where did you get the notion, that it does not?

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".

Re: Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

#186
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

Re: Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

#187

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 buil…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

#188

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.

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.

Re: Ask HN: Cheapest/easiest way to host a static site?

#190
post #36

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/

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.
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