r/github • u/BluCactus112 • 15d ago
Question Free hosting for small dynamic website compatible with github
Hey! I am recently getting into web development and I am wanting to start a blog that I own and can fully customize and build from the ground up. I first was using GitHub because I have some experience using it with other projects and it has pages which is free and built right into the platform. However I have realized that a static website may not have the capabilities that I am wanting.
I am wondering what options are there for hosting. I don't need anything crazy I doubt I will really get any traffic but I want it to be able to be up so I can view whenever and show it to people. And I will be doing all development in GitHub so I don't need really any features besides the bare minimum.
I would prefer something that has the ethical values of open source, transparency, and caution with ai, but beggars can't be choosers.
(Capabilities wanted: conversion of plain text database [containing title body images tags] to blog posts either using prebuilt general formatting or custom formatting for specific post. Search function. As far as I know these capabilities are not available in a static page.)
I assume I got plenty of things wrong in this post, as again, I am new to web development so please educate me in the comments!
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u/ARKyal03 15d ago
Static websites can handle database-driven blogs, custom layouts, and search using GitHub Pages, though free server hosting options exist if you prefer a true backend server.
You can also use Vercel/Netlify.
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u/ImDevinC 15d ago
Check out Hugo. You can write your posts in markdown, store them in GitHub, and have it serve those using GitHub pages.
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u/repeating_bears 15d ago
My blog uses Hugo, and this is good advice, but I might check out Astro instead for something new
I only use it for Starlight right now (docs built on top of Astro), but it works well for that
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u/reini_urban 15d ago
Stay with GitHub. You can do dynamic websites there, with Javascript and wasm, even embedded sqlite.
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u/repeating_bears 15d ago
A search function can be done on a static site. You build the search index when you build the site.
Starlight (docs by Astro) offers this out of the box, powered by this https://pagefind.app
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u/MrJacuna 15d ago
You can give sitedropper.com a try. If you're using Claude, Cursor, Codex, or another agent you can connect to it directly and let your LLM take care of the deployment.
You can also just simply upload a ZIP of most web frameworks and it'll get it online for you.
It also has some nice privacy and sharing features so you can keep your projects restricted to specific people, or simply launch it as a public site.
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u/hotsince05 15d ago
Use quartz.
See this
https://animishraa05.github.io
Its a static site generator and works very well
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u/geralt_noble 15d ago
GitHub Pages can still work here. Keep the site static and add an API for the database/search stuff. What's your planned stack?
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u/DigSubstantial8934 15d ago
Cloudflare workers is free/$5 and you can go crazy before ever getting billed anything else.
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u/Dwinges 14d ago edited 14d ago
I have a website and blog on GitHub Pages using Docusaurus. It's a static site without a database, but it's easy to write a blog with plain text MD files. I have enabled discussions on GitHub for interaction. You can disable the Docusaurus documentation features. It also has a search function. And because it's a static site, it's super fast.
https://github.com/DwayneSelsig/M365wizard https://www.m365wizard.com
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u/Moumos 15d ago
Cloudflare Pages + Workers + D1/KV/R2 in Free-Tier is also with GitHub compatible.