Is there a good alternative to github pages? I need just a static website up.

  • I have a domain.
  • I have my site (local machine)
  • And that’s all I have.
  • I have a machine that could be running 24/7 too.
  • csm10495@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    Something that may help:

    Why doesn’t GitHub Pages fit your use case? It’s nice to get free static hosting from them.

      • csm10495@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        24 days ago

        In what way? Anything on the public internet is likely being used for AI training. I guess by using free GitHub you can’t object to training.

        Then again anywhere you host you sort of run into the same problem. You can use robots.txt, but things don’t have to listen to it.

        • jqubed@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          Self-hosting there are some ways to fight back, or depending on your opinions on Cloudflare it seems they’re fairly effective at blocking the AI crawlers.

            • iveseenthat@reddthat.comOPEnglish
              0·
              22 days ago

              How do I do this? I don’t mind (and may prefer) to host not at home. My main concern with GH is that you become an AI snack whether you like it or not.

  • Hawk@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    You could port forward.

    However, I’d buy a digital droplet for 10 USD a month, point the A record of the domain to that and then use Caddy to implement SSL.

    Caddy can run a http server or reverse proxy something on localhost.

  • Jeena@piefed.jeena.netEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    If you want free static hosting then probably: https://wasmer.io/

    If you have the machine at home then you could set up port forwarding to it, but you would need to do everything yourself like:

    • running a web server like nginx
    • setting up ssl for it with certbot
    • storing the static files in /var/www/html for example
    • port forwarding from your router to that machine
    • using some service like DuckDNS to point a domain to your dynamic IP at home
    • pointing a CNAME to the DuckDNS subdomain on your domain
  • jqubed@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    There’s actually a surprising amount of free static website hosting out there. Besides GitHub, GitLab, Cloudflare, and Netlify come to mind offhand.

  • panda_abyss@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    I have not deployed Garage S3, but it has a static pages feature you could use — just buid your static files with jekyl or something, create a bucket and set the permissions.

  • sorter_plainview@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    Hosting site in your local machine is tricky. It depends on how your ISP configured your network and most of the time you will be under CGNAT. Which means you will not have a unique public IP, but a shared one. Similarly your IP will be dynamic which will need additional configurations. Nowadays it is very difficult to host a site on local machine directly.

    Edit: Checkout if your ISP provide unique IPv6 for your machine. This will not have issues of CGNAT, but you will have to setup DynamicDNS (DDNS) to accomate the changes in IP.

    Edit: If there is CGNAT and you don’t have IPv6, then you need ‘NAT Hole Punching’. Usually services like Tailscale, ZeroTier, Amnesia, Innernet, etc. are needed for that.

    One thing you can try is Tailscale Funnel. Fair warning, bending your head around functioning of Tailscale is not trivial, and you will have to spend some time to properly understand and set it up.

    If you prefer a simpler route, free hosting of a static site is your best bet.

    Netlify is the go to solution if you are familiar with Git. I used to have my portfolio up there. Another option is, as you mentioned, Github Pages.

    Vercel is the another common one people use. But it might be a little more tricky to get it working, because it focus on front end framework like Next.js.

    Checkout Cloudflare Pages too. Very much similar to GitHub Pages, but with the performance and reliability of Cloudflare.

    Heroku is another thing people used in the past. I think the free tier got limited nowadays.

    Good luck with your adventures.

    • littleomid@feddit.orgEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      It’s not “very difficult” to self host. Arguably it’s one of the easier public things to self host. Takes an inexperienced IT enthusiast maybe 2 hours to setup. As for CGNAT, I am very happy that it was not a thing with my past and current ISPs. That would complicate things further of course.

  • SolidGrue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    So, uh…

    Digital Ocean Is pretty inexpensive at US$7 monthly for 1 vCPU/1GB RAM with 1TB transfer. Decent platform. US-based, alas.

    (2025 September, for the archives)

  • Cousin Mose@lemmy.hogru.chEnglish
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    24 days ago

    Use any static site generator and build a Docker container. You could even try out this idea though its lack of http/2+ support might not make it the best option.

      • Cousin Mose@lemmy.hogru.chEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        I think it depends on the number of assets. Generally speaking you’re probably right, but if there are a lot of small files it would be a lot smoother to load them over http/2.

        • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          There is zero question about it. It will be absolutely fine for some dude’s static website over a residential internet connection.

  • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    Some domain registers offer free webspace with the domain. OVH for example gives 100mb (incl. php) which is more than sufficient for a simple website.