Five Free Hosting Platforms With Custom Domains Compared for 2026

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A developer spent a month benchmarking five free hosting platforms — GitHub Pages, Netlify, and others — after realizing paid hosting was no longer necessary for static sites and Flutter web apps. The comparison evaluates each platform across five criteria: custom domain support, free-tier limits, deployment workflow, extra features, and hidden catches. GitHub Pages scored highly for reliability and generous bandwidth but lacks serverless or dynamic capabilities, making it ideal for simple projects. Netlify added value through deploy previews, built-in forms, and edge functions, though its free-tier build minutes can run out quickly with frequent deployments. The findings suggest developers can host side projects at no cost in 2026, provided they choose a platform whose limitations align with their specific use case.

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