Free static website hosting: the honest split

People searching for free static website hosting usually want $0 forever. StaticHost is not that product. After a short trial (~1 day), plans are Starter $9, Pro $30, Scale $65, and Business $130 per month. There is no forever-free tier. What StaticHost offers instead is paid, file-oriented hosting: build locally, upload output, HTTPS preview immediately, DNS next, certificate after verification. It does not run npm or Hugo. nginx is try_files $uri $uri/ =404 with no SPA index fallback. Email and a built-in CDN product are not included.

Forever-free options exist elsewhere (forge Pages and similar). Use them when $0 forever is the job. Use StaticHost when commercial predictability, staging, and explicit quotas matter.

What free hosts cost you

  • Policy and fair-use changes you do not control.
  • Weaker fit for agency staging and multi-client inventory.
  • Temptation to depend on vendor-specific redirect tricks.
  • Branding or workflow constraints tied to a forge account.

Paid StaticHost costs money and states site/storage limits (1×2 GB, 3×10 GB with staging, 10×30 GB, 30×100 GB with teams). Budget that line item. Do not invent “unlimited free SSL hosting” language that collapses under scrutiny.

Decision table in words

Choose free forever hosts for class demos, OSS docs commons, and throwaways. Choose StaticHost for client landers, company marketing sites, and portfolios that need staging discipline. Choose neither for WordPress/PHP—that is another category. Choose a mail vendor for inboxes either way.

Internal links worth reading: free HTML hosting for beginners, cheap portfolio static hosting, and best free HTML hosting.

Worked example: a nonprofit donate page with an embed

A nonprofit wants a donate page. A volunteer builds static HTML with a donation provider embed (the embed handles money; StaticHost only serves files). They could put a personal experiment on a free host, but the nonprofit needs an invoiceable vendor and staging for counsel. They pick Pro ($30): staging for legal review, production for the public URL.

HTTPS preview validates the embed and copy. DNS for give.nonprofit.example follows only when preview is correct; certificate issues after verification. Forms/email for thank-you messages stay with the donation provider and a mail vendor—not StaticHost. When leadership asks “isn’t static hosting free?”, the volunteer explains: free forever exists on other products; this paid plan buys staging and commercial clarity after a short trial—not a forever-$0 promise.

Failure to avoid: assuming a free URL is a domain you own

Trial preview hostnames and free forge URLs are not the same as owning nonprofit.org. If you print a preview URL on paper collateral, you may lose it when the trial ends or when the forge project is renamed. Register a domain at a registrar, point DNS at your chosen host, and wait for verification/certificates on that domain.

On StaticHost, treat preview as temporary QA. Cut DNS only for domains you control. Paying $9+ is also how you keep the site online after the short trial—there is no forever-free plan hiding in settings.

Publish path if you still choose StaticHost

  1. Build locally (no remote npm on the host).
  2. Zip output with index.html at root.
  3. Use HTTPS preview; fix mixed content and paths.
  4. Add your domain; DNS; verification; certificate.
  5. Do not promise SPA fallback or mailboxes.

Pricing clarity for boards and finance

Show the table: $9/$30/$65/$130. Show what is excluded: forever-free, email, CDN product, remote builds, SPA rewrite. Boards can then approve a line item instead of arguing folklore. Compare with true free hosts when $0 is mandated; do not force StaticHost to pretend.

Portability helps: the same dist can move between a free host and StaticHost if you avoided vendor-only SPA redirect files as architecture.

FAQ

Does StaticHost offer free forever hosting?

No. Short trial, then paid plans at $9/$30/$65/$130.

Is HTTPS free on paid plans?

TLS is part of hosting/preview. Hosting itself is not forever free.

Can I use a free host and StaticHost together?

Yes—e.g., OSS docs free, donor page paid. Same generator, different contracts.

Will free-tier SPA redirects work if I migrate here?

If they relied on index fallback, expect 404 until you pre-render or hash-route.