Deploy 2026
The complete guide to putting a website on the internet in 2026 — covering every major platform, every notable AI tool, and exactly what each costs.
Whether you have zero technical experience or years of coding behind you, this site gives you enough to make an informed decision and take action. The deployment landscape has changed dramatically in the past 18 months; this documentation captures it as it stands on May 6, 2026.
The 2-minute summary
- Free static hosting is abundant and effectively unlimited. Cloudflare Pages offers unlimited bandwidth on its free plan. GitHub Pages, Netlify, and Vercel all have generous permanent free tiers. For a site with no server-side code, you can realistically host forever for $0.
- AI vibe-coding tools can take you from idea to live app in under 15 minutes with no coding experience. Tools like Bolt.new, Lovable, and v0 by Vercel let you describe what you want in plain English, then deploy it with one click. The result is real, working code you own.
- The line between writing code and deploying it is disappearing. IDE agents like Cursor, Windsurf, and Claude Code can run deployment commands, fix failed deploys, and write CI/CD pipelines on your behalf — the human's job is shifting toward reviewing what the agent did.
- Free tiers are contracting for compute, expanding for storage. Several platforms removed their permanent free server tiers in 2024–2026 (Fly.io, Railway's free tier, Render's 30-day Postgres limit). At the same time, Cloudflare R2 is making zero-egress object storage mainstream. Read What Changed in 2026 before choosing a platform.
Start here based on your situation
| Situation | Recommended path | Time to live |
|---|---|---|
| I have a finished HTML/CSS/JS site and just need to put it online | Cloudflare Pages — drag and drop or connect your GitHub repo | 5 minutes |
| I have no coding experience and want to build something from scratch | Bolt.new to Netlify — describe your app, click Deploy | 10–15 minutes |
| I'm a developer with a Next.js or React app | Vercel — connect your GitHub repo, done | 5 minutes |
| I need user accounts and a database but don't want to manage a server | Supabase + a static frontend on Vercel or Netlify | 1–2 hours to set up |
| I want the lowest possible cost long-term and I'm comfortable with Linux | Coolify on a Hetzner VPS — as low as €4/month for unlimited apps | 1–2 hours setup; €4/month after |
| I'm already in the Google ecosystem (Firebase, Cloud Functions) | Google Antigravity IDE + Firebase Hosting or Cloud Run | Varies by project |
| I want an AI to help me code but still want full control | Cursor (free tier) or Windsurf (free tier, includes one-click Netlify deploys) | Download in minutes |
| My team is on AWS and we need enterprise-grade hosting | AWS Amplify — 12-month free tier, then pay-per-use | 30–60 minutes |
How to navigate this site
- Getting Started — start here if you don't know what you need
- Quick Decision Tree — answer 3 questions, get a recommendation
- Deployment Platforms — 21 platforms across 5 categories (static hosting, full-stack, BaaS, cloud providers, self-hostable)
- AI Coding Agents — 13 agents across 3 categories (IDE agents, cloud/vibe-coding, deploy-integrated flows)
- Comparisons — side-by-side tables for free tier limits, cold starts, lock-in risk
- Tutorials — step-by-step walkthroughs for specific setups
- All Service Links — every sign-up, pricing, and docs URL in one place
- What Changed in 2026 — key shifts in the ecosystem since early 2025
- Glossary — every acronym and term explained
Snapshot date: This documentation reflects the ecosystem as of May 6, 2026. Pricing, free tiers, and feature sets change frequently — always confirm current details on the vendor's site before committing to a platform.