How to host your HTML website on GitHub Pages for free
GitHub is a great place for hosting your HTML websites. It’s free and you can even use your own domain names.
This document is an update of a previously published tutorial.
Create a free GitHub account
- From your web browser, go to https://github.com.
- Sign up for a new account (or Sign in if you already have a GitHub account. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will consider that you are a new GitHub user).
- When you have entered your details, select the FREE plan for individuals.
- Answer the different questions according to your situation.
- As with most sign ups, after doing this, you will have to validate your subscription by clicking on a link received in your mailbox.
- When it’s done, you can login to your new GitHub account.
![Create a free Github account](/wp-content/uploads/gh-01-02-scaled.jpg)
Download and Install the GitHub Desktop Client
- From your browser, go to https://desktop.github.com so you can download the GitHub Desktop application.
- When the application is downloaded, install it on your system (we will not show this step in the video) and start it.
![Download and Install the GitHub Desktop client](/wp-content/uploads/gh-02-02-scaled.jpg)
Create your first website repository with the GitHub Desktop Client
- From the start screen, select to Sign in to GitHub.com.
- Enter your GitHub username or email address and your password then click on the Sign in button.
- You are now asked to configure Git, so enter a name and a valid email.
- Click the Continue button then click on Finish.
- Select Create a New Repository on your Hard Drive.
- Enter your repository Name and Description.
- Select the Local Path on your computer hard drive.
- You can also configure a few other options as per your needs.
![Create your first website repository with the GitHub Desktop Client](/wp-content/uploads/gh-03-02-scaled.jpg)
Create your website project with Pinegrow
- Start Pinegrow and create a new website project.
- Then save the project in your local Git repository location.
- If you switch to your GitHub Desktop application, you will see the changes already visible within your local repository.
- Add a few elements to the design of your index page and Save the document.
![Create your website project with Pinegrow](/wp-content/uploads/gh-04-02-scaled.jpg)
Proceed to your first Git commit and publish on GitHub.com
- It is now time for your very first commit.
- Enter a summary for your commit and a full description of the changes. Then click on Commit to master.
- Because your repository is currently only available on your local machine, you now have to publish it to GitHub.com.
- Confirm the repository details, uncheck Keep this code private and click on Publish repository.
- By having a look at the History tab, you can see what was committed.
- From the browser, refresh your GitHub screen and you now see your repository.
![Proceed to your first Git commit and publish on Github.com](/wp-content/uploads/gh-05-02-scaled.jpg)
Setup GitHub Pages and activate your live site
- Select it, and go to the settings tab.
- Scroll to the GitHub Pages settings.
- Select the source of the Pages. Here, this is the Master branch.
- The changes are automatically saved and the page is reloaded. Scroll again to the GitHub Pages settings.
- GitHub now provides you with the URL of your website.
- Click on the URL and you are automatically redirected to your live site which is now available for everyone.
![Setup GitHub Pages and activate your live site](/wp-content/uploads/gh-06-02-scaled.jpg)
Make some more changes to your website and publish the changes
- From Pinegrow, make some changes to your project and Save it.
- Proceed to a new commit to the master.
- Push the commit to the origin remote.
- And check your modifications from the browser. The changes will appear on the live site after a few minutes.
![Make some more changes to your website and publish the changes](/wp-content/uploads/gh-08-02-scaled.jpg)
Usage limits
GitHub Pages sites are subject to the following usage limits:
- GitHub Pages source repositories have a recommended limit of 1GB.
- Published GitHub Pages sites may be no larger than 1 GB.
- Hub Pages sites have a soft bandwidth limit of 100GB per month.
- GitHub Pages sites have a soft limit of 10 builds per hour.
Read more about GitHub usage limits.
Prohibited uses
GitHub Pages is not intended for or allowed to be used as a free web hosting service to run your online business, e-commerce site, or any other website that is primarily directed at either facilitating commercial transactions or providing commercial software as a service (SaaS).
Read more about GitHub prohibited uses.
Going further
It’s totally possible to set up your own domain on GitHub Pages. Below are a few tutorials that will help you get started.
Discuss this tutorial
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