GitHub Pages
GitHub's static website hosting service that serves sites directly from Git repositories.
Favored as a free, no-fuss host for hand-written HTML123456 and for static-site-generator output from tools like Hugo, Jekyll and Astro.789 The main caveat is that it only serves static files,1011 so authenticated or per-customer data and app state need workarounds or a different host.1213
Why people recommend it
Free hosting · 3
Commenters host projects and blogs at no cost apart from a domain.
“I host the entire thing on GitHub pages”
“They are all completely free thanks to Cloudflare Workers / Github Pages.”
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“I use GitHub Pages for free hosting and let them build things for me when I push updates”
Simple HTML hosting · 3
Recommended for people who want to write and upload their own HTML/CSS without WordPress.
“Or Github pages is also fine if you just want to write and host HTML.”
“if you want to supply all the HTML/CSS yourself: Github Pages or Cloudflare Pages.”
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“upload it to any static website hoster (ex: github/gitlab pages)”
Static generator workflow · 3
Works as the publishing target for Hugo, Astro and Jekyll sites, including builds on push.
“I use Hugo published to Github Pages for my blog.”
“I use gh-pages to push to GitHub pages.”
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“I use GitHub Pages for free hosting and let them build things for me when I push updates”
Code stays portable · 1
The site is just code in a repo, so it remains yours if GitHub changes things.
Fast static pages · 1
A static blog on Pages scored 100 on PageSpeed without any tuning.
“I use Hugo published to Github Pages for my blog.”
Public demos · 1
Seen as a good fit for hosting public demos.
“for a public demo like this one, GitHub Pages would work great”
Caveats and dissent
No auth · 1
Per-customer files that need authentication don't fit Pages.
“for a public demo like this one, GitHub Pages would work great”
Static only · 1
Personal data and saved state require client-side encryption or local storage workarounds.
Git-based deploys · 1
Frequent scheduled data updates work better with object storage than git deploys.
“for a public demo like this one, GitHub Pages would work great”
Jekyll dependencies · 1
Keeping Jekyll dependencies compatible with GitHub's versions was sometimes a headache.
“I use GitHub Pages for free hosting and let them build things for me when I push updates”
Often compared with
SquarespaceWho recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner 4 mentions
- Removing Next.js Got My Blog to 100 on Every Lighthouse Category 1 mention
- Sites in ChatGPT 1 mention
- The GitHub wiki is an anti-pattern (2022) 1 mention
- Fast drilldown dashboards from a single Parquet file 1 mention
- How I Over-Engineered My Book 1 mention
Data: github-pages.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 13
“I use Hugo published to Github Pages for my blog.”
“My default approach is github pages.”
“gh-pages is the obvious next step of course.”
“for a public demo like this one, GitHub Pages would work great”
“I use gh-pages to push to GitHub pages.”
“They are all completely free thanks to Cloudflare Workers / Github Pages.”
“upload it to any static website hoster (ex: github/gitlab pages)”
“or even plain GitHub Pages without a static site generator”
“Or Github pages is also fine if you just want to write and host HTML.”
“if you want to supply all the HTML/CSS yourself: Github Pages or Cloudflare Pages.”
“the site is hosted on GitHub pages and open source”
“I host the entire thing on GitHub pages”
“I use GitHub Pages for free hosting and let them build things for me when I push updates”