Actual free static website hosting

There has been tension between companies offering static website hosting and customers in recent years. Especially the companies founded in the last decade and that were part of the JAMStack movement such as Netlify. Their policies on exceeding the free limits of their basic plans has led to unexpected bills for customers, and has eroded trust. What are the policies on exceeding limits?
Limit overage policies
Web hosts want people to try their platform. They want new customers. To really entice people, the most common bait used is free hosting. They want to make adoption as friction-free as possible, so they do not ask for any payment method upfront, but they set limits on usage. The limits are usually enough for you to host a few projects and permit a moderate level of traffic. Sounds reasonable.
These plans are usually called a starter plan or a hobby plan. The limits center on bandwidth usage (100GB per month is typical), the time taking to build your website (300 minutes per month is typical), the number of invocations of serverless functions (125k per site per month is typical), and a few others. Figures for overage to the limits are typically quoted alongside the limit. For example, Netlify will charge $55 for an additional 100GB of bandwidth.
The dark side is when the limits are what you can call soft limits. If your website runs over a limit, your website is not shut down. The following month, you will be presented with a bill! This policy is contrary to what many people expect. From my own experience, I was not aware of this fact upfront when I signed up to an account with Netlify. At best, this policy was not emphasized. More probably it is a tactic to turn free customers into paying customers!
There have been dramatic customer stories like one Netlify customer receiving a $104K bill for a simple static site. There is even a website dedicated to unexpected serverless bills called serverlesshorrors.com. These stories spook people. What if something I make goes viral or I suffer a denial-of-service attack?
A company line that is used is that warnings are issued when you hit certain metrics. For example, when you hit 75% of your monthly bandwidth limit you are notified by email. Warnings are helpful, but it does not protect you from a sudden spike of activity that you can’t react to quickly.
This policy has led people to migrate their websites to other providers that do not have this policy. Harrison Broadbent disscuses this in his insightful article - Goodbye Netlify, Hello Cloudflare.
A change of tack from Netlify - an always-free plan
I guess that Netlify have had enough blowback from this that they have reconsidered their position. Recently, they introduced their Free plan that is an “always-free solution for deploying your web projects”. If your app or site exceeds the Free plan limits for the month, it will be suspended for the remaining days in the calendar month. At any time, you can reactivate your site instantly by upgrading to a usage-based plan.
Static website hosting - bandwidth limits and overage charges
Cloudflare and Render both offer unlimited bandwidth. You will never have an issue with being charged, or migrating a website to accomodate greater traffic.
Host | Plan | Bandwidth Limit | Hard Limit? | Overage Fees |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cloudflare Pages | Free | Unlimited | Yes | N/A |
Render | Hobby | Unlimited | Yes | N/A |
Netlify | Free | 100 GB | Yes | $55/100 GB |
Vercel | Hobby | Not specified. 100 GB probably. | Yes | N/A |
GitHub Pages | Free | 100 GB | Not exactly. They say this with regard to reaching the limit: “…[we] may not be able to serve your site, or you may receive a polite email from GitHub Support” | N/A |
DigitalOcean | Free | 1 GB | No | $0.02/GB |
Conclusion
I would recommend that before you choose a web host that you are clear on what the plan entails, especially the financial conditions. Having hard limits on usage will spare you surprise bills in the future. Don’t assume that if your website runs over a bandwidth limit that your website will be shut down. Don’t assume that because you did not provide a payment method that you will not be held liable for a payment. 😅
Thankfully, the vast majority of the popular platforms for static website hosting now have hard limits. Netlify has joined the club in January 2025. In my quick review of static website hosts, CloudFlare Pages and Render are the standouts as they offer unlimited bandwidth. The only downside with CloudFlare that I know of is that its deployment experience is not as polished as Netlify.
I think that it is a good idea to build websites with portability in mind. Try to be platform agnostic if you can. This ensures that you can shift platforms easily if your needs or circumstances change. I favour companies that have clear terms for their plans, especially on usage and pricing, and generally have a good customer service track record.