Put your Claude Code website online, free

Q: How do I add a custom domain?

Buy one from a registrar (roughly $10 to $15 a year for a .com, watch the renewal price), then add it in your host's project settings. The dashboard shows the DNS records to add and issues free HTTPS automatically once it's verified.

Push your site to GitHub, connect it to a free host like Vercel or Netlify, and you get a live https:// URL. Claude Code can run every step.

Once your site looks right in Claude Code's local preview, going live takes three things: a GitHub repo, a free host connected to it, and one push. Vercel and Netlify both have a genuinely free tier for a personal site, and Claude Code can run the git commands and walk you through the rest.

This site isn't affiliated with Anthropic. If you haven't built the site yet, your first Claude Code website covers that part; this guide picks up right after, when you're staring at a working local preview and wondering how anyone else sees it.

Why GitHub plus a host, and not something simpler

A local preview at localhost or a file:// link only exists on your machine. To get a real https:// address, you need somewhere public to host the files and something to serve them. GitHub plus a host is the standard beginner path because it's free, and every future update is just a git push.

GitHub stores your code and tracks changes. The host (Vercel or Netlify) watches that repository, builds the site, and serves it on a public URL. Connect them once, and every push after that redeploys automatically, no manual upload step ever again.

You don't strictly need GitHub. Both hosts also accept a folder dragged straight into the browser for an instant one-off URL: Netlify Drop or Vercel's drop tool. It works, but you lose auto-redeploy: updating means dragging the folder again by hand, every time.

The walkthrough

now

Ask Claude Code to push the project to GitHub

Try: "Create a GitHub repository for this project and push the current code to it. Keep it private." Claude Code runs git init, add, commit, and push for you, subject to your permission mode's approval prompts.

Sign in to Vercel or Netlify with your GitHub account

No credit card required to start on either free tier. This also grants the host permission to read your repos.

Import the repository

On Vercel: New Project, pick the repo, Import. On Netlify: Add new site, Import an existing project, pick the repo. For a plain HTML/CSS site there's usually no build configuration to touch.

Click Deploy

The host installs anything needed, builds the site, and deploys it. You get a live *.vercel.app or *.netlify.app URL, usually within a minute.

last

Push again to update it

Ask Claude Code: "Commit these changes and push to GitHub." The host detects the push and redeploys automatically. No extra step, no re-uploading.

That auto-redeploy behavior is documented on both platforms: pushes to your main branch go live automatically once the repo is connected. Source: Deploying GitHub Projects with Vercel.

A private GitHub repo works fine for this. You don't need to make your code public to deploy it. Both Vercel and Netlify can read a private repo once you've granted access, and the live site itself is public regardless of the repo's visibility.

Adding a custom domain (optional)

A *.vercel.app or *.netlify.app URL is free and works immediately. If you want your own domain instead, buy one from a registrar (Cloudflare Registrar sells at cost with no markup, and typical .com pricing across registrars runs roughly $10 to $15 a year, though renewal is often priced higher than the first-year rate, so check both numbers before you buy).

Once you own the domain, add it in the host's project settings. The dashboard tells you which DNS records to add, or lets you point the domain's nameservers at the host directly. Both hosts issue free HTTPS automatically once the domain is verified, no separate certificate purchase needed. Source: Cloudflare Registrar.

Honest limits of the free tiers

Free hosting is real, not a bait-and-switch, but it has ceilings. Tested on Claude Sonnet 5, July 2026, here's what the plans actually cap:

Vercel Hobby (free): 100GB of fast data transfer a month, generous function limits, custom domains included at no extra platform cost. The catch: it's explicitly licensed for non-commercial, personal use only. A site that starts selling something is expected to move to a paid Pro plan. Source: vercel.com/pricing.
Netlify Free: switched to a credit-based model in 2026. You get 300 credits a month, and bandwidth costs 20 credits per GB, which works out to roughly 15GB of bandwidth a month if you spend every credit on transfer alone, less if the site also uses functions or a database.
Worth noting: that's thinner than the "100GB free" figure older tutorials still repeat, so don't plan around a number from a 2024 article. Netlify's free plan does allow commercial use, unlike Vercel's. Source: netlify.com/pricing.
Netlify's build queue: the free plan allows one concurrent build. If you're pushing small commits rapidly (easy to do with Claude Code doing the typing), builds can queue up rather than run in parallel.

Where beginners commonly trip up:

Mistaking the local preview for the live site. Only the https:// link the host gives you after deploy is shareable; localhost never is.
Pushing a .env file or an API key straight into the GitHub repo by accident. Both hosts will happily deploy a leaked secret. Set secrets as environment variables in the host's dashboard instead of hardcoding them in your files.
Assuming Claude Code needs some special "deploy" permission. It doesn't: it runs the same git and CLI commands a person would type, and your permission mode (Manual, Accept Edits, or Auto) still governs what it's allowed to do without asking first.

“Keep the repo private, or better, keep secrets out of the codebase entirely, not because a site with real secrets in it went to a public repo unnoticed.”

If you want the fuller picture of what Claude Code can and can't do before you commit to this workflow, Claude Code for non-devs covers the concepts this guide assumes, and Claude Code pricing breaks down what a paid plan actually costs if you haven't picked one yet.

How do I put my website online for free?

Push your code to GitHub, then connect the repo to Vercel or Netlify. Both have a free tier, sign in with GitHub, no credit card needed to start, and the host builds your site and hands you a live https:// URL within about a minute.

Is Vercel free?

Yes, the Hobby plan is free for personal, non-commercial projects, with capped monthly limits (100GB fast data transfer, among others). If your site starts making money, Vercel expects you to upgrade to a paid Pro plan.

Do I need GitHub to deploy?

No. GitHub gives you auto-redeploy on every push and a version history, which is worth having, but both hosts also accept a folder dragged directly into the browser for an instant URL with no repository at all.

How do I add a custom domain?

Buy one from a registrar (roughly $10 to $15 a year for a .com, watch the renewal price), then add it in your host's project settings. The dashboard shows the DNS records to add and issues free HTTPS automatically once it's verified.

Deploying with Claude Code isn't mechanically different from doing it yourself: it runs the same git commands, and if a host's CLI is installed, the same deploy commands, a person would type. The difference is you describe the step in plain English and approve it. See how to use Claude for the basics of working with Claude day to day.