How to host a blog for free in 2023

There's no reason to pay for hosting a website, unless of course you want to. I don't want to. My previous blog was created using Jekyll and then uploaded to S3, from where it was then made accessible. It's a great setup if you have the time for it, but I just didn't want to bother. So here's the quick instructions for how to publish a blog using only no-code tools – for free. You'll have to only invest into a domain, but that's kind of obvious. 

Step 1: Static Site Generator

The first thing you'll want to make sure is that your new fancy blog is actually not requiring anything else than a static storage. No PHP, no Database, nothing dynamic (except for Client Side Scripting stuff). There's a bazillion options, awesome-static-generators has you covered. I choose Publii, which combines static site generation with a nice desktop app, and so far, it works absolutely perfectly. 

Then comes the part where you actually have to create content. After you're done creating content, head over to 

Step 2: Netlify 

Netlify hosts things, that is, making content accessible to the internet. In the simplest version, you can create a static site simply by uploading a ZIP-File containing the files needed. We'll pretty much use that approach. In Pubii, there's a dedicated option for setting up Netlify that then also makes publishing pretty much a one-click operation. If you use a different site generator you might want to either drop the files manually or set up some automation that does it for you. 

Here comes the kicker: the starter pricing tier comes free and contains all the functionalities that are needed to run your blog. From connecting a custom domain and provisioning a LetsEncrypt certificate to basically endless bandwidth – there's 100GB for free. If you exceed that, you might anyway want to look into alternate options. 

Summary 

Netlify and a Static Site Generator are a very convenient, economical and fast alternative to Wordpress and other dynamic approaches. And they don't require anyone to write a single line of code or get lost in config files.