Cloudflare Drop is a free tool that puts a static website online in seconds, with no account. You drag a folder, a ZIP file or a single HTML file onto cloudflare.com/drop, and you get a live address on Cloudflare’s global network. Cloudflare launched it on July 8, 2026 (Cloudflare changelog).
There is one catch to know before you share that link. An unclaimed Drop site lives for 60 minutes. After that, Cloudflare deletes it. To keep it, you must claim it into a Cloudflare account within the hour. This guide explains how Drop works, its limits, and what happens after you claim a site.
How Cloudflare Drop works, step by step
According to Cloudflare’s Drop page and its July 8, 2026 changelog entry (checked October 2026), the flow has four steps:
- Drop your files. Use a folder or ZIP of static files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images), or a single .html file. A single HTML file is served as the home page, whatever its name.
- Get a live address. Cloudflare uploads the files and gives you a
workers.devURL. That is a free Cloudflare subdomain, not your own domain. - Test and share. The preview works right away. You can send it to a client or open it on your phone.
- Claim within 60 minutes. Select Claim, then sign in or create a Cloudflare account. New accounts must verify their email first.
In plain terms: “Claiming” means attaching the site to a real Cloudflare account. Until you claim it, the site sits in a temporary account that Cloudflare deletes after an hour.
Imagine a freelance designer who just asked Claude for a landing page. The result is a folder with index.html, a stylesheet and a few images. Drop is the fastest way to see it live and send a link for feedback. If the client says “perfect, put it online,” that is when the claim step and the questions below start to matter.
Cloudflare Drop limits and rules
Drop is built on Cloudflare’s temporary accounts for Workers, Cloudflare’s main hosting product. Cloudflare’s documentation on claiming deployments (updated July 14, 2026) sets these rules:
- 60 minutes to claim. Opening the claim link is not enough. You must finish the claim before the deadline.
- Unclaimed means deleted. If no one completes the claim, Cloudflare deletes the temporary account and everything in it.
- Up to 1,000 files. Static assets in a temporary account are limited to 1,000 files.
- 5 MiB per file. Each file can weigh up to 5 MiB (about 5.2 MB) before you claim. A large video or a heavy PDF will not fit.
- The claim link is a key. Cloudflare says to treat it “like a bearer credential”: anyone who has the link can take the site into their own account.
That last point is easy to miss. If you paste the claim link into a group chat by mistake, someone else can claim your site. Share the live preview address, never the claim link.
What happens after you claim a Drop site
Once claimed, the site becomes a normal, permanent deployment in your Cloudflare account. Cloudflare’s changelog lists what you can then do: connect a domain you own or buy a new one, make the site private and choose who can see it, turn on monitoring, and enable Markdown for agents (a version of your pages formatted for AI tools).
Updating the site is the open question for non-developers. Cloudflare’s documentation, checked October 2026, does not describe dropping a new version onto a site you already claimed. The documented way to keep deploying to a claimed account is Wrangler, Cloudflare’s command-line tool (CLI): you run wrangler login, then wrangler deploy. If you never open a terminal, plan for that before you hand a Drop site to a client.
For a browser-only path with updates, rollbacks and preview links, Cloudflare Pages Direct Upload is better documented. Our guide on uploading a website to Cloudflare without Git walks through it. To understand why Cloudflare now steers new projects to Workers, read Cloudflare Pages vs Workers.
Who Cloudflare Drop is for
Drop is excellent for quick proofs: a mockup to show a client, a prototype an AI tool just wrote, a page to test on a phone. It costs nothing, needs no setup, and runs on one of the largest networks on the web.
It is a weaker fit for a site that must stay online and change often. You need a Cloudflare account to keep it, the per-file limit is small before claiming, and updates lean on a terminal. For the full picture of Cloudflare’s hosting options, see our guide to what Cloudflare Pages is, its pricing and free limits.
Where sofast fits
sofast is built on Cloudflare’s network, but it is a separate service and does not run on Cloudflare Pages or Cloudflare Drop. It keeps the part of Drop that designers like, dragging a folder in, and removes the 60-minute clock. You create a free sofast account once. Then every upload stays online, and uploading a new version keeps the same address.
Drop wins on two points: it needs no account at all to start, and Cloudflare’s wider platform is there if your project grows into an application. sofast hosts static files only and is a new, pre-launch service. Our sofast vs Cloudflare Pages comparison sets the trade-offs side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Cloudflare Drop is a free tool at cloudflare.com/drop that publishes a static website without an account. You drag in a folder, a ZIP file or a single HTML file, and Cloudflare gives you a live workers.dev address within seconds. Cloudflare launched it on July 8, 2026. The site stays online for 60 minutes unless you claim it into a Cloudflare account.
Yes. Dropping a site and previewing it costs nothing and needs no account. To keep the site past 60 minutes, you claim it into a Cloudflare account, which you can create for free. Cloudflare's paid plans only matter if your project later needs more than the free Workers limits.
An unclaimed Drop site stays online for 60 minutes. Cloudflare's documentation on claiming deployments (updated July 14, 2026) says the claim must be completed within that window; opening the claim link is not enough. If no one completes the claim, Cloudflare deletes the temporary account and the site.
Before you claim a site, Cloudflare's temporary accounts allow up to 1,000 static files, with each file up to 5 MiB (about 5.2 MB), according to Cloudflare's claim deployments documentation, checked October 2026. Drop accepts HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images and other static files. It does not build source code, so export your finished site first.
Yes, after you claim the site. Cloudflare's July 8, 2026 changelog says that once a Drop site is claimed, you can connect a domain you already own or buy a new one. Before the claim, the site only lives on a workers.dev address provided by Cloudflare.
Cloudflare's documentation, checked October 2026, does not describe dropping a new version onto a claimed Drop site. The documented way to keep deploying to a claimed account is Wrangler, Cloudflare's command-line tool: run wrangler login, then wrangler deploy. If you prefer a browser, Cloudflare Pages Direct Upload supports new deployments from the dashboard.
Share the live preview address freely. Do not share the claim link. Cloudflare says to treat the claim URL like a bearer credential: anyone who has it can claim the site into their own Cloudflare account. Send it only to the person who should own the site, and claim it yourself as soon as possible.
No. Drop runs on Cloudflare Workers, not Cloudflare Pages, and gives you a workers.dev address. Cloudflare Pages is an older product with its own drag-and-drop upload in the dashboard, called Direct Upload, which requires an account from the start. Cloudflare's Pages documentation now says to start new projects with Workers.
Sources
- Cloudflare, Cloudflare Drop (checked October 29, 2026)
- Cloudflare Changelog, Cloudflare Drop (July 8, 2026)
- Cloudflare Docs, Claim deployments (temporary accounts) (updated July 14, 2026)
- Cloudflare Docs, Pages Direct Upload (checked October 29, 2026)