Free static hosting limits that actually bite
19 October 2026 · 6 min read
Free static hosts rarely let you down on features. They let you down on the day the free tier runs out, and what happens next varies a lot. One host pauses every project you own. One makes you wait 30 days. Some restrict commercial uses, so the type of business site matters. On 19 October 2026 we read each host's limits and pricing pages to see exactly where the free plans stop, and then compared that with how a MakeMySiteLive free site behaves. Limits change, so treat the numbers as a snapshot and check the host's page before you commit.
Vercel Hobby: free, but only for personal projects
The numbers look big. Hobby includes 100 GB of fast data transfer and 1,000,000 CDN requests a month. A portfolio will not come close to any of that.
The catch is in Vercel's fair use guidelines: Hobby is for non-commercial, personal use only. A site that sells something, advertises a service, or belongs to a business is supposed to be on Pro, which costs $20 per user per month. If you exceed a Hobby limit, Vercel's docs say that in most cases you wait 30 days before you can use that feature again.
Netlify Free: one credit pool, and everything stops when it's empty
Netlify's Free plan gives you 300 credits a month, described as a hard limit with no option to buy more. Bandwidth costs 20 credits per GB and each production deploy costs 15 credits. That is our arithmetic, not a number Netlify prints: spend everything on bandwidth and you get about 15 GB, spend everything on deploys and you get about 20.
When the credits run out, every project on the team is paused until the next billing cycle. Netlify's docs say visitors then see a “Site not available” message, and deploys stop too, including previews. The only ways out are to wait for the reset or pay for a plan. Because the pause applies to the whole team, one busy project can take your quiet ones down with it.
GitHub Pages: soft limits and restrictions on commercial transactions
GitHub lists a 1 GB published site, a soft 100 GB per month of bandwidth, and a soft 10 builds per hour (except custom GitHub Actions workflows), with deployments timing out after 10 minutes. These are soft limits rather than a guaranteed traffic allowance. If you go over, GitHub says it may be unable to serve your site, and support may email you suggesting a CDN or a different host.
The policy is the bigger problem for anyone with a business. GitHub prohibits using Pages as free hosting to run an online business, an e-commerce site, or a site primarily directed at commercial transactions or commercial software as a service. That is more specific than a blanket ban on every page related to a business.
Cloudflare Pages: generous static hosting, with several upload options
Cloudflare is the strongest free plan on raw traffic. Its docs say requests to static assets are free and unlimited, and the remaining limits are about the shape of the site: 20,000 files, 25 MiB per file, and 500 builds a month with one build at a time. Pages Functions are the exception and have Workers usage limits.
Cloudflare also supports dashboard drag-and-drop of a ZIP or folder: Git and the command line are optional. The dashboard upload method has a lower 1,000-file limit; Wrangler supports up to 20,000 files. Choose the workflow that fits your project.
What a MakeMySiteLive free site does instead
A MakeMySiteLive account gets one full site free, with no card and no time limit, and unlimited microsites for ordinary use. You upload a ZIP and the site is live, with no repository, no build step and no command line.
There is no monthly credit pool to drain or automatic credit-based pause. Fair-use and abuse restrictions still apply. Our terms describe free sites as for ordinary personal and business publishing, so putting a business or client page on one is within the rules. And every deploy is versioned, so if you upload the wrong folder you can roll back.
Data transfer is unlimited for ordinary use. There is no monthly GB allowance to count and no bandwidth bill. We show the data each site serves on your dashboard so you can see it, but it is not metered against a quota. We also say what the limits are. A free site is capped at 50 MB of storage and shows a MakeMySiteLive badge. Our terms say “unlimited” means unlimited for ordinary use, not unlimited volume: free sites are not a CDN, a file host or a download mirror, and an account far out of proportion to ordinary use may be throttled, asked to move to a paid site, or suspended. If your site is a few pages of HTML and images, you are unlikely to meet any of that.
Keeping a site private costs $3, not $20
Password protection is where the gap between hosts is easiest to measure. For project-priced Vercel Pro teams, password protection adds $20 per month per protected project to the base Pro subscription, which starts at $20 per user per month. Enterprise includes it, and legacy Pro teams may have different pricing.
On MakeMySiteLive a Pro site costs $3 a month or $36 a year and includes password protection, no branding badge and version history of your last 10 deploys, and you can connect a domain you own. For one password-protected site, that is the base subscription price. Domain registration and any separately priced domain allowance are additional.
How to pick
For a portfolio, a landing page, a client preview, a report, a menu or an event page, MakeMySiteLive is the lowest-friction choice: ZIP in, link out, no policy that rules out your use, and a flat price if you want a password or your own domain. Vercel Hobby excludes commercial use, GitHub Pages restricts online-business and commercial-transaction uses, and Netlify Free can pause your whole team.
If you are building a very large site, or expect heavy traffic on a project that already lives in a Git repository, Cloudflare Pages is the better fit, and we would say so. Free hosting of video or big downloads belongs nowhere on this list.
What each free plan does at its limits (checked 19 October 2026)
| Host | Main free limits | If you go over | Business site on the free plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| MakeMySiteLive | Unlimited data transfer for ordinary use; 50 MB storage per site, branding badge | No monthly credit cutoff; fair-use and abuse restrictions apply | Allowed (ordinary use) |
| Vercel Hobby | 100 GB transfer, 1M CDN requests | Wait about 30 days for that feature | Not allowed (personal use only) |
| Netlify Free | 300 credits a month (about 15 GB if all on bandwidth) | All team projects paused until next cycle | Not restricted on the pricing page |
| GitHub Pages | 1 GB site, soft 100 GB bandwidth, soft 10 builds an hour | May be unable to serve; support email | Online-business, e-commerce and commercial-transaction uses restricted |
| Cloudflare Pages | 20,000 files, 25 MiB a file, 500 builds a month | Static bandwidth is unlimited; Functions have a daily quota | Not restricted on the limits page |
Key takeaways
- Vercel Hobby is non-commercial. GitHub Pages restricts hosting online businesses, e-commerce and sites primarily directed at commercial transactions or commercial SaaS. MakeMySiteLive's terms allow ordinary personal and business publishing on a free site.
- Netlify Free pauses every project on the team when the monthly credits run out, and you cannot buy more on the free plan. A MakeMySiteLive free site has no credit pool to run out of, and its data transfer is unlimited for ordinary use.
- Password protection on Vercel costs $20 a month per protected project on Pro. A MakeMySiteLive Pro site is $3 a month and includes it.
- Cloudflare Pages and MakeMySiteLive both leave data transfer uncapped for ordinary use. Cloudflare is the better fit for very large sites, since a MakeMySiteLive free site is capped at 50 MB of storage.
Frequently asked questions
Can I run a business site on a free static host?
It depends on the host. Vercel's Hobby plan is limited to non-commercial personal use, and GitHub restricts Pages for online-business, e-commerce and commercial-transaction uses. MakeMySiteLive's terms describe free sites as for ordinary personal and business publishing. Netlify's pricing page and Cloudflare's limits page do not state a restriction, so read each host's terms for your case.
What happens if my free site goes viral?
On Netlify Free the credits can run out and every project on the team pauses until the next cycle. On Vercel Hobby you may wait about 30 days for the limit to clear. GitHub may stop serving the site and email you. Cloudflare Pages does not meter static requests. On MakeMySiteLive data transfer is unlimited for ordinary use and nothing pauses at a credit limit, but our terms allow throttling or asking you to upgrade if a free account's traffic is far out of proportion to ordinary use.
Do I need Git or a command line to publish?
Not on MakeMySiteLive. You upload a ZIP from your dashboard and the site is live. Cloudflare Pages also accepts a ZIP or folder through dashboard drag-and-drop, as well as Git and command-line deployments.
Is 50 MB enough for a free MakeMySiteLive site?
For a portfolio, a landing page, a menu or a report page, usually yes. A site with large images, video or downloadable files can pass it quickly. If you need more storage, contact support; staff can grant additional capacity in 50 MB steps.
Are these numbers going to stay the same?
Don't count on it. Netlify's free plan is now measured in credits rather than a fixed bandwidth number, which shows how much the terms can differ between hosts. We checked each host's own docs on 19 October 2026, so confirm on their pages before you build around a number.