Static hosting has become a go-to option for personal blogs, documentation sites, and front-end projects. For developers in particular, the appeal is obvious: simple deployment, low maintenance, and often a generous free tier.
Among the most commonly used free options, Vercel, GitHub Pages, and Cloudflare Pages stand out the most. They all support static site hosting, but their free plans differ in speed, limits, and the kinds of projects they suit best.
Vercel
Vercel is built with front-end deployment in mind and is widely used for static sites and modern web apps.
Its main strengths include:
- Global CDN: content is distributed across multiple nodes worldwide to keep loading times low.
- Custom domains: you can bind your own domain and use automatic deployment.
- Free-tier limits: the free plan includes 100GB of bandwidth per month. Build count and build duration are also limited, though the allowance is generally comfortable for individual users.
- Access speed: for users in mainland China, Vercel usually performs better than GitHub Pages and Cloudflare Pages.
If fast delivery is the top priority, Vercel is often the strongest option in this comparison.
GitHub Pages
GitHub Pages is GitHub’s built-in static hosting service, making it a natural fit for developers and open-source projects.
Its characteristics are fairly straightforward:
- Stability: since it runs on the world’s largest code hosting platform, it is generally considered reliable.
- Custom domains: supported.
- Access speed: performance in mainland China is average, and access issues can appear from time to time.
- Limits: 100GB of traffic per month, a 100MB file size limit per file, and a recommended repository size under 5GB.
For projects already living on GitHub, especially open-source ones, GitHub Pages remains a convenient and stable choice.
Cloudflare Pages
Cloudflare Pages is Cloudflare’s static hosting service, designed around fast delivery and security.
Its free plan includes:
- Global CDN: like Vercel, it relies on a worldwide CDN network.
- Custom domains: supports up to 10 custom domains.
- Build and file limits: up to 500 builds per month, a maximum of 20,000 files, and 25MB per file.
- Access speed: broadly similar to GitHub Pages, but in mainland China both speed and stability are fairly average.
It makes the most sense for users who already want to build around Cloudflare’s ecosystem, though its real-world access experience in China is not as strong as Vercel’s.
How the free plans compare
Speed
From a mainland China access perspective:
- Vercel usually has the best performance.
- GitHub Pages and Cloudflare Pages are in a similar range.
- Between those two, GitHub Pages tends to be more stable.
Custom domain support
All three platforms allow custom domains.
The main difference is that Cloudflare Pages caps the number of custom domains at 10, while the other two do not have that specific limit mentioned here.
Bandwidth, builds, and file restrictions
Each platform imposes limits in a different way:
- Vercel: 100GB monthly bandwidth, plus limits on build count and build time.
- GitHub Pages: 100GB monthly traffic, 100MB per file, and a recommended repository size below 5GB.
- Cloudflare Pages: 500 builds per month, 20,000 files maximum, and 25MB per file.
These differences matter depending on the type of site you’re deploying. A lightweight blog may never hit them, while a larger documentation site or asset-heavy project might.
Best fit by use case
- Vercel works especially well for personal blogs and front-end projects that need fast loading and strong overall reliability.
- GitHub Pages is a good match for developers and open-source projects, especially for users who care about Baidu indexing.
- Cloudflare Pages is better suited to people who specifically want to use Cloudflare’s CDN and related services, even if its mainland China performance may not be as good as Vercel’s.
Which one is the better choice?
If the goal is the best access speed in mainland China, Vercel is the most attractive free option of the three. For many personal blogs and front-end projects, it offers a very balanced mix of ease of use and performance.
GitHub Pages remains a dependable alternative, particularly for developer-oriented or open-source sites. It is stable, easy to integrate with existing GitHub repositories, and still a practical choice when convenience matters more than raw speed.
Cloudflare Pages benefits from Cloudflare’s infrastructure, but when the audience is mainly in mainland China, its speed and consistency are usually less impressive than Vercel’s.
The right pick depends on what matters most for your project: access speed, deployment workflow, platform ecosystem, or the specific limits of the free plan.
Test links for checking access speed in your region
If you want to compare performance from your own location, these test addresses can be used.
Platform-provided test domains
- Vercel: https://static-pages-test.vercel.app/
- Cloudflare Pages: https://static-pages-test.pages.dev/
- Github Pages: https://hoytzhang.github.io/static-pages-test/
- Netlify: https://static-page-test.netlify.app/
Custom domains using Cloudflare DNS resolution without CDN
- Vercel: https://spt.vercel.linkpark.site/
- Cloudflare Pages: https://spt.cfpages.linkpark.site/
- Github Pages: https://spt.ghpages.linkpark.site/
- Netlify: http://spt.netlify.linkpark.site/
You can also compare access results with:
https://www.itdog.cn/http/