Free website hosting: four platforms and current limits
A small portfolio, documentation site or project page can use a free hosting plan. Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, Vercel Hobby and Netlify Free have different limits and permitted uses. The old archive figures are not one permanent promise of unlimited hosting or free commercial infrastructure.
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Choose by workload, not only price
A static site serves prepared HTML, CSS, JavaScript and assets. A function runs code on the server. A database stores changing records. Each can use a different quota or product.
Free plans can include more than static files, but not unlimited compute, storage or traffic. Start with what your site actually needs.
Cloudflare Pages
The current Pages limits list five hundred builds per month on Free, one build at a time, a twenty-minute build timeout, up to twenty thousand files and a twenty-five MiB maximum individual asset.
The Functions pricing page says requests to static assets are free and unlimited when they do not invoke Functions. Functions count towards Workers quotas. Its Free example combines Workers and Functions into one hundred thousand daily requests.
That is not unlimited build minutes or unlimited server code. Read invocation routing so a static request does not unexpectedly run a function.
GitHub Pages
GitHub lists a one-GB maximum published site, a soft one-hundred-GB monthly bandwidth limit and a soft ten-builds-per-hour limit. The build limit has an exception for a custom GitHub Actions workflow. Deployments time out after ten minutes.
Its terms say Pages is not a free host for an online business, e-commerce site or a site primarily facilitating commercial transactions or commercial SaaS. It also should not handle sensitive transactions such as passwords or card numbers.
Use it for a suitable static project, portfolio or documentation site. It does not provide a native application backend just because JavaScript runs in the visitor's browser.
Vercel Hobby
The current Hobby documentation says the plan is free for non-commercial personal use. It lists one hundred GB Fast Data Transfer, ten GB Fast Origin Transfer, one million function invocations, four CPU-hours and other separate allowances.
A transfer allowance is not a complete function budget. Image transformations, memory, analytics and duration limits also matter. The page says many exceeded limits require waiting thirty days before the feature can be used again.
A business campaign or revenue-generating application should not be placed on Hobby merely because it fits the technical quota.
Netlify Free
The current credit-based plan lists three hundred credits per month with a hard limit and no automatic recharge option. It is not the archive's three hundred build minutes.
Credits cover supported metered usage under the current plan. The documentation includes functions, storage and database capabilities, so the archive's static-only description is too narrow.
Legacy and current billing arrangements can differ. Inspect your actual account plan, credit consumption and pause behaviour before relying on old bandwidth or request figures.
A practical shortlist
- For a simple public project or documentation site, check whether GitHub Pages fits the use rules.
- For static delivery with optional functions, compare Cloudflare's static and Workers limits separately.
- For a non-commercial personal framework project, review Vercel Hobby's full resource table.
- For a small experiment with metered features, evaluate Netlify's credit-based plan.
These are workload-based starting points, not a claim that one provider is always best.
General first-deployment steps
- Decide whether the site is static or needs a backend.
- Check permitted use and current free-plan limits.
- Remove secrets and private files from the project.
- Preview the site locally on phone and desktop.
- Use the provider's official repository or upload route.
- Review build settings and requested account permissions.
- Deploy a small test and inspect the public page.
- Test links, images, error routes and forms.
- Monitor usage and keep a backup.
No new hosting account, project or paid service was created for this comparison.
Free subdomain versus custom domain
A provider-supplied address can avoid buying a domain. A custom domain, renewal and separate services have their own prices.
The old approximate annual domain figure is not a verified current quote. Registrar, extension, taxes and renewal price matter. A domain is not the only possible cost: databases, email, compute, build tools and add-ons can also cost.
India and privacy
No specific Indian account entitlement, local-data commitment or final bill was verified. Public documentation access does not establish where every request or log is processed.
Do not put API keys in browser JavaScript. A repository marked public can reveal source and assets. Use a suitable backend for secrets and review logs before collecting visitor information.
What changed since the original post?
We replace old quota shorthand with current official limits, correct Netlify minutes to credits, retain Vercel's personal-use restriction and add GitHub's commercial-use boundary. Free tiers are neither all static-only nor all unlimited.
Frequently asked questions
Is a custom domain the only cost?
No. Usage and add-ons can cost separately.
Can every business use Vercel Hobby?
Its terms restrict it to non-commercial personal use.
Are all four plans identical?
No. Check the workload and current account plan.
Sources: Cloudflare Pages limits · Cloudflare Functions pricing · GitHub Pages usage and purpose · Vercel Hobby limits · Netlify credit-based plans. Checked 7 October 2026.