Skip to content
WebAuditOS
Start free audit

Test your website now

Free, no card. We read only public pages.

Run free audit →

Hosting and deploy

How do you host a website?

The ways to host a website in 2026, from static hosts to app platforms and servers: what each suits, the effort involved, and what to check before launch.

To host a website, put its files or app on a server connected to the internet and point your domain at it. Static sites fit hosts such as Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages or GitHub Pages. Apps with a backend fit platforms such as Railway, Render or Fly.io. A private server gives full control and full responsibility.

Published · Last updated

By Michal Měřínský. Audit methodology.

First: what are you hosting?

  • A static site: HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images, built ahead of time. Landing pages, blogs, documentation and many single-page apps.
  • A web app with a backend: server code, an API, a database, background jobs.
  • A content management system, such as WordPress, which needs PHP and a database.

The options

  • Static hosting: Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages. Connect a Git repository, and every push builds and deploys. HTTPS and a CDN are included. Usually free for small sites.
  • Frontend platforms with serverless functions: Vercel and Netlify also run server code per request, which suits Next.js and similar frameworks.
  • App platforms: Railway, Render, Fly.io, Heroku. Run a long-running server or container, often with a managed database alongside.
  • Backend as a service: Supabase and Firebase provide database, authentication and storage, so a frontend host may be all else you need.
  • Managed WordPress hosts: for WordPress sites, with updates and backups handled.
  • A virtual private server: a Linux machine from a cloud provider. Full control, and you handle updates, security, TLS and backups yourself.

How to choose

  • Prefer the simplest option that runs your site. Less infrastructure means less to break and secure.
  • Check where data is stored if you serve EU users and handle personal data.
  • Look at what happens when traffic grows: price per request, bandwidth limits and cold starts.
  • Check deploy previews, rollbacks and logs. You will need them on a bad day.

Before you launch

  • Connect your custom domain and confirm HTTPS works on both www and the bare domain.
  • Set production environment variables, and make sure no secret is exposed to the browser.
  • Check robots.txt allows crawling and that no page is set to noindex from staging.
  • Add a sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console.
  • Set up uptime monitoring and error tracking.

A preview or staging deployment copied to production is the source of many launch problems: noindex tags, test API keys and password protection left on.

What a scan can and cannot tell you

WebAuditOS checks the result of your hosting choice from outside: HTTPS and redirects, server response time, cache headers, status codes and everything else a visitor and crawler meet.

It cannot compare hosts, see your bill or test behavior under heavy traffic.

Run a scan right after the first production deploy. It catches the staging leftovers before visitors and crawlers do.

Short answers

Can I host a website for free? Yes. Static hosts offer free plans for small sites.

What is the easiest way to host a website? Push the site to a Git repository and connect it to a static host.

Do I need a server for a React app? Not for a client-only app. Frameworks with server rendering need a platform that runs server code.

Where should I host a Next.js app? Vercel is the default, and Netlify, Railway, Render and others also run it.

In the product

The checks this maps to

Every check named here runs on every scan, on every plan - what a plan changes is how many pages are crawled, how long the history is kept and what you can do with the result. These are the ids the findings carry, so you can match a line in a report to the explanation above.

Hosting and deploy

How do you host a website on GitHub Pages?

GitHub Pages hosts static sites free from a repository. How to publish, add a custom domain and HTTPS, deploy a React or Vite app, and the limits to know first.

Hosting and deploy

What is Netlify, and how do you deploy a site on it?

Netlify builds and hosts websites from a Git repository on a global CDN. How deploys, netlify.app addresses, functions and forms work, and what to check.