Static HTML hosting, scored on free limits, expiry and price
ship.page scores 84/100 for free HTML hosting with no signup ($0, 10 MB HTML, live in 2.2 seconds); Netlify Drop (77/100) deletes unclaimed deploys after 1 hour. Cloudflare Pages is $0 with no expiry once you have an account.
| Job | Pick | Free limit | Cost | Full guide |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free HTML hosting, no signup | ship.page, 84/100 | 10 MB HTML, 25 MB ZIP, 7-day link | $0; Pro $4 a month | Free HTML hosting |
| A permanent free site | Cloudflare Pages | 20,000 files, 25 MiB each, no expiry | $0 with an account | Getting started |
| Form submissions | Web3Forms | 250 submissions a month | $0; Pro $12 a month, billed yearly | Forms |
| User file uploads | Cloudflare R2 | 10 GB-month, no egress fees | $0, then $0.015 per GB-month | Storage |
| Reading and writing data | Supabase | 500 MB database | $0; Pro $25 a month | Database |
| Live updates | Cloudflare Durable Objects | 100,000 requests a day | $0; Workers Paid $5 a month | WebSockets |
StaticBackend compares the services a static HTML site runs on: where the files are hosted, and which hosted APIs handle forms, uploads, data and live updates. Every limit and price on the site comes from the vendor's own pricing, docs or support pages, and the upload timings come from our own runs. Limits & pricing verified November 2026.
How the hosting scores work
Hosts are scored out of 100 on one published rubric built around the job most people have: turning an HTML file into a working link with no account. It weighs publishing without signup, how long that link lives, how few steps it takes, the free upload limit and the cost to keep the link online. The free HTML hosting test and the Netlify Drop alternatives test both use it, and the rubric, every host's points and our upload test method are on the methodology page.
Upload times come from our own runs on November 13, 2026: a 4 MB HTML file was live on ship.page in 2.2 seconds, on Netlify in 6.3 seconds and on Cloudflare Pages in 9.9 seconds. Times are reported next to the scores but not counted in them. When a vendor changes a limit or a price, the affected pages and scores are updated together and the verified month moves forward.
The original StaticBackend project
StaticBackend began as an open-source backend for static sites, written in Go under the MIT license. Its repository, staticbackendhq/core, is archived with 744 stars, so the project no longer ships releases. This site covers the same problem with the hosted services available in 2026. If you followed an old link to the project's docs, the backend guides and getting started pages are where those topics live now.
Guides on this site
- Getting a static HTML site online, with ship.page, Cloudflare Pages and GitHub Pages compared
- Deploying from the terminal with curl, Wrangler, Surge and the Netlify CLI
- HTML form submissions with Web3Forms, Forminit, Formspree and Basin
- File uploads and storage with Cloudflare R2 presigned URLs
- A database behind a static site with Supabase, Firestore, Turso and D1
- WebSockets and live updates with Durable Objects, Pusher and Ably
Official sources used most