Updated September 23, 2026 · 8 min read
Where the free tiers are genuinely free, and where “free” quietly assumes you know what a build command is.
A site built with Claude, ChatGPT, or another AI tool doesn’t need much to go live — it’s a handful of static files. That makes free hosting genuinely realistic, not just a trial gimmick. Here’s what each major option actually offers, and where the fine print matters.
What “free” actually means here
Every host on this list has a real, no-time-limit free tier for static sites. The differences that matter are: whether commercial use is allowed, how bandwidth is measured, and whether the setup assumes any technical comfort — a GitHub account, a command line, a build tool — that a design-focused free tier shouldn’t require.
Cloudflare Pages
Cloudflare Pages’ free tier doesn’t cap bandwidth at all — a genuine standout, since every other major free static host on this list caps it somewhere. It supports up to 100 custom domains with free, automatically issued SSL, and 500 builds a month. The tradeoff for most people isn’t a limit — it’s that Pages is built with developers in mind: deploying means connecting a Git repository, not dragging a folder into a dashboard.
Free tier: unlimited bandwidth (fair-use policy), 500 builds/month, up to 100 custom domains with free SSL.
The catch for a non-technical user: setup assumes a GitHub or GitLab repository, not a drag-and-drop upload.
GitHub Pages
GitHub Pages hosts static sites directly from a GitHub repository, for free, indefinitely. Google’s own published limits: a recommended 1GB source repository, a 1GB published site size, and a soft bandwidth limit of 100GB a month. Custom domains work, with free automatically issued SSL.
Free tier: 1GB site size, 100GB/month soft bandwidth limit, custom domain with free SSL.
The catch for a non-technical user: same as Cloudflare Pages — it’s built around Git and a repository, which is an unfamiliar workflow if you’ve never used version control.
Vercel and Netlify’s free tiers
Vercel’s free Hobby plan includes 100GB of bandwidth a month but is restricted to personal, non-commercial use under its terms — a real constraint if the site is for a paying client. Netlify’s free plan runs on a monthly credit system (300 credits, roughly 20 production deploys) rather than a straightforward bandwidth number, which makes it harder to predict how far it’ll stretch.
Free tier: Vercel — 100GB bandwidth, non-commercial only. Netlify — 300 credits/month (~20 deploys).
The catch for a non-technical user: both platforms are built primarily for developer workflows (Git-based deploys, command-line tooling for anything beyond a basic drag-and-drop), and Vercel’s non-commercial restriction specifically rules out client work.
Comparison table
| Host | Bandwidth | Commercial use | Setup method | Custom domain SSL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Pages | Unlimited (fair use) | Allowed | Git repository | Free, automatic |
| GitHub Pages | 100GB/mo (soft limit) | Allowed | Git repository | Free, automatic |
| Vercel (Hobby) | 100GB/mo | Not allowed | Drag-and-drop or Git | Free, automatic |
| Netlify (Free) | ~15GB/mo (credit-based) | Allowed | Drag-and-drop or Git | Free, automatic |
| sofast (Free) | Reasonable use (50 MB storage, one site) | Allowed | Drag-and-drop | Paid plans only (from $5/mo); SSL automatic |
Which one fits an AI-generated site
For a developer comfortable with Git, Cloudflare Pages’ uncapped bandwidth is hard to beat. For anyone who just wants to drag a folder of files — the export from Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini — into a dashboard and have it live, that’s the gap sofast’s free tier is built for: no Git repository, no command line, no non-commercial restriction to trip over if the site is for a client.
Frequently asked questions
Cloudflare Pages comes closest, with no published bandwidth cap — though like any “unlimited” claim, it’s still governed by a fair-use policy for extreme cases. Every other host on this list has a defined free-tier ceiling.
Depends on the host’s terms. Vercel’s free Hobby plan explicitly prohibits commercial use; Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, and Netlify’s free tiers don’t have that restriction, which matters if you’re hosting on behalf of a paying client.
Support for connecting your own domain is standard across all the hosts above — what’s not always included for free is the domain itself, which you buy separately from a registrar (see our guide on how to buy a domain name ).
It comes down to who each platform was originally built for. Cloudflare Pages and GitHub Pages assume a developer workflow built around Git repositories; other platforms, including sofast , are built around a simpler drag-and-drop upload instead.
It varies by host — some throttle your site, some pause it until the next billing cycle, and a few (like GitHub Pages) simply email a warning rather than taking action immediately. None of them silently charge you on a true free tier; if money’s ever involved, you’ll be asked to upgrade first.
For a simple static site with modest traffic, yes — these aren’t trial gimmicks, they’re genuine production-grade infrastructure at several of these hosts. The main things to watch are the commercial-use terms and the bandwidth ceiling, not reliability itself.
No — every host listed here offers its free tier without requiring payment information up front.
Yes, since static files aren’t locked to any one platform — export your files and upload them wherever you move to, the same way you uploaded them the first time.
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