Static site hosting: Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages and GitHub Pages compared (2026)

What a static site is, and when it’s enough

A static site is a folder of finished files: HTML pages, CSS, images and a little JavaScript. When someone visits, the host hands over the file as it is. Nothing is built on a server for each visitor, and there is no database to hack or update.

That makes static hosting cheap, fast and low-maintenance. Many hosts serve these files from a CDN (a network of servers around the world), so pages load quickly everywhere.

The verdict first: static hosting is a good fit for a portfolio, a brochure site for a small business, a landing page, documentation or a site that an AI builder or a developer made for you in code. It is a poor fit if you want to log in and edit pages in a visual editor, run a store or take bookings without extra tools. For that, a website builder or WordPress is usually easier.

The four big static hosts at a glance

Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages and GitHub Pages all connect to a Git repository (where the site’s code lives), rebuild the site when the code changes and publish it with free HTTPS. They differ most on how they count usage and whether the free plan allows business use.

Sources: Netlify pricing, Vercel Hobby docs, Cloudflare Pages and GitHub Pages limits.

Netlify: credits for everything

Since September 4, 2025, new Netlify accounts use credit plans. Free has 300 credits a month, Personal is $9 a month for 1,000 credits, and Pro starts at $20 a month for 3,000 credits with unlimited team members. Netlify lists no yearly prices.

According to Netlify’s credit docs, a production deploy costs 15 credits, each GB of bandwidth costs 20, and 10,000 web requests cost 2. Form submissions are free, which helps a small business site with a contact form.

The catch is the hard cap. When a project hits its limit, it pauses until the next billing cycle, and if one project goes over, every project on the account pauses. Personal and Pro can buy more credits ($5 for 500 on Personal, $10 for 1,500 on Pro), but auto recharge is off by default.

Right for: small business sites and freelancers who want free forms and one flat team price. Older accounts may still be on legacy plans, and switching to credits can’t be undone.

Vercel: generous free tier, but not for business

Vercel makes Next.js and v0. Hobby is free and includes 100 GB of data transfer and 1 million CDN requests a month. Over the limit, you usually wait 30 days; you can’t buy more.

The rule that matters most: Vercel’s fair use guidelines restrict Hobby to non-commercial personal use. Selling anything, advertising a product or service, running ads, an affiliate site, or being paid to build or host the site all count as commercial. Asking for donations does not.

Pro is $20 a month per deploying seat and includes $20 of usage credit plus 1 TB of data transfer and 1 million CDN requests through Flat Rate CDN. Usage past the credit is billed on demand, and Vercel sets a default spend notification at $200 a cycle. Paid Pro teams get one free first-year domain on 16 eligible extensions, not .com.

Right for: developers using Next.js or v0, and businesses that will pay for Pro.

Cloudflare Pages: unlimited bandwidth

Cloudflare’s pricing page lists unlimited sites, unlimited static requests and unlimited bandwidth, even on Free. Free includes 500 builds a month, one build at a time and 100 custom domains per project. If you also use a Cloudflare Pro plan ($20 a month billed yearly, $25 billed monthly), builds rise to 5,000 a month.

Dynamic parts, such as a form handler written as a Pages Function, are billed as Workers requests: 100,000 a day free, or Workers Paid at a $5 monthly minimum with 10 million requests included. Static file requests stay free.

Two details to know. The Pages docs cap accounts at 100 Pages projects, despite “unlimited sites” on the pricing page. And Cloudflare’s own migration guide says Workers has “a distinctly broader set of features” than Pages, with steps to move over.

Right for: sites that might get big traffic spikes, and anyone who wants the lowest bill.

GitHub Pages: free, with limits on use

GitHub Pages publishes a site straight from a repository. It’s free for public repositories on GitHub Free; private repositories need a paid GitHub plan. Sites can be up to 1 GB with a soft limit of 100 GB of bandwidth a month.

GitHub says Pages is not meant to be a free host for an online business, an e-commerce site or a commercial SaaS, and shouldn’t handle passwords or card numbers. There is no server code, so forms need an outside service.

Right for: portfolios, open-source project pages, documentation and personal sites.

What it costs over 3 years

Static hosts don’t include email or a .com domain, so we add the same baseline used across this site: a .com domain for three years ($48.24) and one Google Workspace inbox ($252). Hosting prices are monthly, times 36.

The math: $5 x 36 = $180; $9 x 36 = $324; $20 x 36 = $720. Vercel’s free domain doesn’t cover .com, so we keep the $48.24. For comparison, a WordPress site on Bluehost Starter with the same domain and inbox comes to $432.60 over three years: $143.64 of hosting on a 36-month term (it then renews at $9.99 a month), $36.96 for years 2 and 3 of the .com at our Namecheap baseline after Bluehost’s free first year, and $252 for email.

Will a business site fit a free tier? Here is an example with our own assumptions: 10 GB of transfer a month and 8 deploys. On Netlify that’s 10 x 20 + 8 x 15 = 320 credits, just over Free’s 300, so the site would pause and Personal is the safer plan. On Cloudflare Pages the same site stays at $0. Vercel Hobby has room for it, but its terms don’t allow business use. GitHub Pages is out for an online business, so we leave it out of the table.

How AI builders deploy to these hosts

AI builders that write real code often end up on one of these four. Here is what each one’s own docs say.

• v0 deploys to Vercel in one click, even on v0’s free plan. Hosting is billed by Vercel under your Vercel plan, so a business site built with v0 needs Vercel Pro, not Hobby.
• Lovable hosts apps itself. Its guide to leaving lists Vercel, Netlify and Cloudflare Pages among the places to deploy the front end. New Lovable projects since May 13, 2026 run with server-side rendering on Cloudflare Workers, so they need a server-capable host, not a static-only one.
• Bolt hosts on its own bolt.host addresses (10 GB of bandwidth on Free, 30 GB on Pro) and offers Netlify deployment as an alternative.

All three sync code to GitHub, which is what makes a move to another host possible. For more on these tools, see our AI website builders guide.

Static hosting or a website builder?

Choose static hosting if someone writes or generates the code and you want a low bill and full control of the files. Choose a builder such as Squarespace or Wix if you want to edit text and photos yourself in a browser, sell products or take bookings without hiring help.

There is a middle ground: a static site that pulls its text from a headless CMS, so non-technical people can edit content. That adds a second service and usually a developer to set it up.

What you can take with you

Static sites are among the easiest to move. Your site is a folder of files in your own Git repository, and any of these four hosts, or a regular web host, can serve it. You change the DNS records, and the site moves.

What doesn’t move as easily: host-specific extras such as Netlify Forms, Vercel or Cloudflare functions, and redirect files written in one host’s format. List those before you switch. Our guide to leaving your website builder covers the general steps.

Gotchas before you pick

• Shared limits. Netlify credits are shared by every project on the account, so ten small sites on one free account share one 300-credit allowance. Cloudflare counts concurrent builds per account.
• Seats add up on Vercel. Each person who deploys is a $20 seat, so a three-person team pays $60 a month before any usage. Viewer seats are free.
• Pausing, not billing. Free plans on Netlify and Vercel stop serving or stop features when you hit a limit rather than charging you. That protects your wallet but can take a business site offline during a busy week.
• Prices exclude tax. Vercel’s docs say all prices exclude VAT, GST and other applicable taxes.
• No yearly discount. Netlify, Vercel and Workers Paid list monthly prices only. Cloudflare’s Pro plan is the one with a yearly price ($20 a month billed yearly).
• Back up the repository. Your Git repository is the site. Keep a copy outside the host, for example a local clone, so a closed account doesn’t take the only copy with it.

What to do next

• Choosing between the two most popular hosts? Read Netlify vs Vercel.
• Curious about .eth names and IPFS? See our neutral guide to blockchain websites.
• Want a visual editor and no code? A website builder will suit you better than any of these hosts.