This article covers a simple method to build and host static website with custom domain for free. Building a website is easy especially static websites where you have to deal with HTML only. But when it comes to hosting, things get a bit complicated. Although there are lots of web hosting services where you can host your website, the majority of those services are paid. Some of them do offer a free plan but you ain’t get the option to use a custom domain with that.
Clodui is a free static website hosting service that allows you to use a custom domain as well. All you have to do is upload your website assets and it automatically optimizes all the assets for the best performance. It serves your website from global CDN with a free SSL certificate. On top of that, you can also create forms and embed them to the website for HTML form submission with email notifications.
Clodui has multiple user support. If you have a team or collaborators, you can add them to your website project and define role-based access. You can also add multiple owners to the website.
Also read: Host Website Free on Decentralized Internet with Custom Domain
Build and Host Static Website with Custom Domain for Free
To build and host a static website with Clodui first you have to create an account. You can either register with an email address or sign up quickly with a Google or Facebook account. When you sign in for the first time, it takes a few seconds to loads the interface. Then, it opens the dashboard where you get an option to create a website. It also shows your existing websites as well (if you have any).
To build a website, click the “Create Website” button from the dashboard and upload your website assets. You can simply drag and drop the assets to the builder along with your HTML index file. When you upload the files, it automatically optimizes the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images. It converts the JPEG/PNG images to WEBP.
After optimizing the assets, it shows you an overview of the website where you can customize the website name. Initially, it generates a URL to your website on Clodui subdomain but you can connect a custom domain later from settings. This overview section also shows the active forms, and users along with your recent deployments. Website deployment on this service are atomic; it shows you a deployment history with an option to instant rollback the updates.
Custom Domain
You can connect your website to a custom domain from the Settings section present alongside the Overview. You can simply mention the domain and configure it with on-screen guides to host your website. Apart from that, you can also choose the optimization and security level for your website from here.
Add Forms
Another handy feature of this service is Forms. From the Forms section, you can create a form for HTML form submission. You can set the form behavior to redirect or show a custom message. On top of that, you can also save an email template to send an email on every submission.
Wrap Up
Clodui is a nice service where you can easily build and deploy websites with custom domains. It is pretty simple to use and automatically optimizes the website assets which makes it a perfect fit for those who lack technical knowledge for hosting. Since the website is static, having an option to add forms for HTML form submissions is a nice add-on. Give it a try and share your thoughts with us in the comments.
