Netlify
Ranked 4 of 7 static site hosts by recommenders
Recommended for easy static hosting with GitHub hookup, drag-and-drop deploys and a generous free tier; the most common caveat is that free credits run out fast and bills can surprise.
Recommended for easy static hosting with GitHub hookup, drag-and-drop deploys and a generous free tier; the most common caveat is that free credits run out fast and bills can surprise.
58 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 36
- criticize it
- 22
- approval share
- 62%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 36 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Generous free tier for small sites
“a static hosting service with a generous free tier like CloudFlare Pages/Workers, Netlify, Firebase Hosting”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Exploit brokers pay $500k for WordPress RCEs. I found one with GPT5.6 and $25” “For low-volume static sites (which all of mine are) this is free, fast, and convenient.”
Comment from 21 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: How do you host your vibe coded tools/sites?” “I was impressed to see how far I could get with the free tiers of these services.”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “Yamanote.fun – A complete soundscape for Tokyo's Yamanote line” - Comment from 5 Sep 2026 in “Statichost.eu – European static site hosting”
- Comment from 18 Apr 2026 in “How to Host a Blog on a Subdirectory Instead of a Subdomain”
- Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars”
- Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?”
Drag-and-drop deploys
“I can just updated the index.html in the "website" folder on my desktop and literally drag it to Netlify to update it”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “Cloudflare Drop” “good free option for non techies since you can just drag a directory to deploy it”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?” “you can just drag a folder that contains your website and it's up immediately”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “How to Make a Damn Website” - Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “A simple web we own”
Simple GitHub integration and previews
“All of my static sites that I've built lately have been done on Netlify. Super easy to hook up to Github and the form handling is a breeze.”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes” “Netlify giving me previews of the PR's changes for me to see before merging”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: Show your AI coded games [June 2026]” Simple for static sites
“Services like netlify make it pretty simple”
Comment from 9 Nov 2025 in “Alive internet theory” “makes hosting static stuff super easy”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Free credits run out fast
“This was okay with Netlify as a connector, but I quickly ate through the free credits.”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Pagecast – Publish Markdown/HTML Reports to Cloudflare Pages” “Netlify's free tier used to not have credits, but then they added it, and it makes the platform less accessible to users”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Popular platform, StudioArt gets open sourced due to web hosting issues,newsite” “I have to wait till 25th july till my Netlify credits to get refreshed”
Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Bribes.fyi – Built something to report bribes” - Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Emergencias.live – Ultra-lightweight emergency info for Spain”
- Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “Cloudflare Drop”
Surprise bills and high costs
“no "oh shit" moment when you suddenly exceed it and owe real $$$ (looking at you, Netlify)”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Bunny Database” “I still remember that guy who got a $100k Netlify bill for his free plan.”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “Hardcore IndieWeb: Run your own website 100% independently for only $0.01/day” “Vercel and Netlify charge 10,000x for a pretty UI and not much else”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Hugo Static Site on Cloudflare” - Comment from 5 Sep 2026 in “Statichost.eu – European static site hosting”
- Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Tell HN: GitHub Is Experiencing Degraded Performance”
Sites banned or blocked
“they banned one of my sites without even telling me for an unsubstantiated trademark complaint”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “Matthew Prince on why Cloudflare offers a free version and always will (2016)” “they'll block your IP address from the entire netlify.app IP range”
Comment from 11 Jul 2026 in “Google Search lets creators know more about their reach” Weak beyond basic static sites
“Netlify is fine until you need custom binaries or persistent storage, then it gets weird fast”
Comment from 1 Apr 2026 in “EmDash – a spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security” “the likes of Vercel and Netlify barely offer anything else on their free tiers”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “Zig – Type Resolution Redesign and Language Changes”
Other static site hosts people recommend
The four most recommended other static site hosts, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel | 139 | 238 | 37% | 12 | 1 yr5 owners | — |
| GitHub Pages | 86 | 26 | 77% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Cloudflare Pages | 83 | 18 | 82% | 12 | 2 mo3 owners | Approved |
| NetlifyThis page | 36 | 22 | 62% | 12 | — | — |
| Cloudflare Drop | 19 | 21 | 48% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 64 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they banned one of my sites without even telling me for an unsubstantiated trademark complaint”
“you can use Netlify to host your website for free and still be able to add a PayPal client button”
“most AI models get into the weeds of asking the user to sign up to netlify or firebase”
“if you get hit with a bot attack, they come after you for $100k+”
“Netlify and vercel have a generous free tier, I never paid a dime.”
“For low-volume static sites (which all of mine are) this is free, fast, and convenient.”
“we had quite a few issues and high costs with them”
“a static hosting service with a generous free tier like CloudFlare Pages/Workers, Netlify, Firebase Hosting”
“I have to wait till 25th july till my Netlify credits to get refreshed”
“I still remember that guy who got a $100k Netlify bill for his free plan.”
“they'll block your IP address from the entire netlify.app IP range”
“I got frustrated hitting the free tier limits on Netlify”
“I can just updated the index.html in the "website" folder on my desktop and literally drag it to Netlify to update it”
“I was impressed to see how far I could get with the free tiers of these services.”
“This was okay with Netlify as a connector, but I quickly ate through the free credits.”
“Netlify giving me previews of the PR's changes for me to see before merging”
“Netlify made life easier by emoving dependency on a local machine and offering an online CMS”
“Fortunately there's Netlify and similar, who put a gloss on it so that I don't have to boil the ocean.”
“Note the difference between Netlify and Microsoft-owned Github”
“all of those have very generous free tiers, so it can cost nothing”
“Netlify and Vercel and others are responsible for a ton of free sites (like mine).”
“It's far quicker for me to upload something to Cloudflare Pages or Netlify.”
“Netlify is fine until you need custom binaries or persistent storage, then it gets weird fast”
“Providers like Netlify, Firebase Hosting, CloudFlare are much better value for money for features for maintenance.”
“the likes of Vercel and Netlify barely offer anything else on their free tiers”
“Free netlify hosting. Server side analytics is still $9/m, but anyway”
“Most even have a drag and drop interface.”
“burning through 1,000 Netlify build credits in under 12 hours”
“no "oh shit" moment when you suddenly exceed it and owe real $$$ (looking at you, Netlify)”
“Been incredible seeing the waves of new developers coming onboard during the last year”
“you can just drag a folder that contains your website and it's up immediately”
“Netlify's free tier used to not have credits, but then they added it, and it makes the platform less accessible to users”
“Netlify + Cloudflare cost peanuts (might end up less than $5 a month)”
“makes hosting static stuff super easy”
“All of my static sites that I've built lately have been done on Netlify. Super easy to hook up to Github and the form handling is a breeze.”
“Vercel and Netlify charge 10,000x for a pretty UI and not much else”
“good free option for non techies since you can just drag a directory to deploy it”
“host with netlify. No cost.”
“Services like netlify make it pretty simple”
“Happy Netlify customer here, same deal. $0.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.