GitHub Pages vs Netlify

Overview

GitHub Pages

Stacks17.7K

Followers13.0K

Votes1.1K

Netlify

Stacks3.6K

Followers2.1K

Votes207

GitHub Pages vs Netlify: What are the differences?

GitHub Pages and Netlify are two popular platforms for hosting websites. While both platforms offer similar functionalities, there are key differences between them that make them unique in their own ways.

Deployment Process: GitHub Pages allows users to host static websites by simply pushing their code to a specific branch on a GitHub repository. On the other hand, Netlify provides a more advanced deployment process that includes continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) capabilities. It automatically builds and deploys websites whenever changes are pushed to a connected repository.
Custom Domain: GitHub Pages allows users to use a custom domain for their websites, but it requires users to set up the domain themselves by configuring DNS records. In contrast, Netlify makes the process of adding a custom domain easier by providing a built-in DNS management system. Users can easily set up and manage custom domains directly from the Netlify dashboard.
Build Environment: GitHub Pages has a limited build environment as it supports only a few static site generators and languages. Netlify, on the other hand, provides a wider range of build options. It supports various static site generators, programming languages, and even frameworks like React and Vue.js. This flexibility allows developers to choose the tools and technologies that best suit their project needs.
Serverless Functions: Netlify offers a unique feature called serverless functions, which enables developers to run server-side code on demand without the need to set up and manage a server. This feature is not available on GitHub Pages. It allows developers to build dynamic functionalities and APIs directly into their websites, making them more interactive and powerful.
Form Handling: Netlify provides built-in form handling capabilities, allowing users to collect data from forms on their websites without any additional setup. It generates a serverless function that handles form submissions and provides options to route submissions to email, external APIs, or store them in a database. GitHub Pages does not have a built-in form handling feature and requires users to use third-party services or custom solutions.
Collaboration and Workflow: GitHub Pages is tightly integrated with GitHub, which makes it an ideal choice for developers who already use GitHub for version control and collaboration. It simplifies the workflow by automatically deploying changes whenever code is pushed to the repository. Netlify, on the other hand, provides a more comprehensive collaboration and workflow management system. It allows users to create multiple deployment branches, set up preview environments for pull requests, and perform A/B testing.

In Summary, GitHub Pages offers a straightforward deployment process and integration with GitHub, while Netlify provides advanced features like CI/CD, serverless functions, form handling, and a more robust collaboration workflow.

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Advice on GitHub Pages, Netlify

Howie

Full Stack Engineer at Yintrust

Aug 13, 2020

Decidedon

Netlify

We use Netlify to host static websites.

The reasons for choosing Netlify over GitHub Pages are as follows:

Netfily can bind multiple domain names, while GitHub Pages can only bind one domain name
With Netfily, the original repository can be private, while GitHub Pages free tier requires the original repository to be public

In addition, in order to use CDN, we use Netlify DNS.

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Comments

Detailed Comparison

GitHub Pages	Netlify
Public webpages hosted directly from your GitHub repository. Just edit, push, and your changes are live.	Netlify is smart enough to process your site and make sure all assets gets optimized and served with perfect caching-headers from a cookie-less domain. We make sure your HTML is served straight from our CDN edge nodes without any round-trip to our backend servers and are the only ones to give you instant cache invalidation when you push a new deploy. Netlify is also the only static hosting service with integrated continuous deployment.
Blogging with Jekyll; Custom URLs; Automatic Page Generator	Global Network;Global Network;Instant Cache Validation;Atomic Deploys;API proxying;SSL for custom domains;Continuous Deployment;Link to Github or Bitbucket
Statistics
Stacks 17.7K	Stacks 3.6K
Followers 13.0K	Followers 2.1K
Votes 1.1K	Votes 207
Pros & Cons
Pros 290 Free 217 Right out of github 185 Quick to set up 108 Instant 107 Easy to learn Cons 4 Not possible to perform HTTP redirects 3 Limited Jekyll plugins 3 Supports only Jekyll 1 Jekyll is bloated	Pros 48 Easy deploy 43 Fastest static hosting and continuous deployments 23 Super simple deploys 23 Free SSL support 16 Easy Setup and Continous deployments Cons 7 It's expensive 1 Bandwidth limitation
Integrations
GitHub	GitHub Bitbucket

What are some alternatives to GitHub Pages, Netlify?

DomainRacer

It is a blazing fast hosting solution that provides Customer Satisfaction driven Web Hosting services since 2016.

Vercel

A cloud platform for serverless deployment. It enables developers to host websites and web services that deploy instantly, scale automatically, and require no supervision, all with minimal configuration.

Surge

Surge makes it easy for developers to deploy projects to a production-quality CDN through Grunt, Gulp, npm.

Webflow

Webflow is a responsive design tool that lets you design, build, and publish websites in an intuitive interface. Clean code included!

Divshot

Divshot makes building and hosting front-end web applications simple. Build locally and deploy using a simple command-line interface. Divshot supports multiple environments, pushState routing, atomic deploys, and more.

GitLab Pages

Host your static websites on GitLab.com for free, or on your own GitLab Enterprise Edition instance. Use any static website generator: Jekyll, Middleman, Hexo, Hugo, Pelican, and more

Firebase Hosting

It is production-grade web content hosting for developers. With a single command, you can quickly deploy web apps and serve both static and dynamic content to a global CDN (content delivery network). You can also pair it with Cloud Functions or Cloud Run to build and host microservices.

Runkod

It provides decentralized hosting platform and management tools for modern javascript applications and static web publishing.

BitBalloon

BitBalloon deploys static sites from development to production in one step. Sites are automatically compressed, cached and pushed to a CDN. Any forms on the site will automatically work. BitBalloon is 100% programmable, everything from deployment to form handling can be controlled through the API. White label reseller options are available for using BitBalloon as a site publishing engine inside 3rd party authoring tools.

Spigot

It is home to the community behind the biggest Minecraft server software projects and provides a place for everyone involved with Minecraft servers to connect with each other whether they seeking help and support or sharing and showcasing their work. We provide a web forum, chat room and wiki for providing support as well as project hosting for content creators and hope that you too will become involved in this extensive and growing community of more than 300,000 members.

Related Comparisons

GitHub Pages vs Netlify: What are the differences?

Deployment Process: GitHub Pages allows users to host static websites by simply pushing their code to a specific branch on a GitHub repository. On the other hand, Netlify provides a more advanced deployment process that includes continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) capabilities. It automatically builds and deploys websites whenever changes are pushed to a connected repository.
Custom Domain: GitHub Pages allows users to use a custom domain for their websites, but it requires users to set up the domain themselves by configuring DNS records. In contrast, Netlify makes the process of adding a custom domain easier by providing a built-in DNS management system. Users can easily set up and manage custom domains directly from the Netlify dashboard.
Build Environment: GitHub Pages has a limited build environment as it supports only a few static site generators and languages. Netlify, on the other hand, provides a wider range of build options. It supports various static site generators, programming languages, and even frameworks like React and Vue.js. This flexibility allows developers to choose the tools and technologies that best suit their project needs.
Serverless Functions: Netlify offers a unique feature called serverless functions, which enables developers to run server-side code on demand without the need to set up and manage a server. This feature is not available on GitHub Pages. It allows developers to build dynamic functionalities and APIs directly into their websites, making them more interactive and powerful.
Form Handling: Netlify provides built-in form handling capabilities, allowing users to collect data from forms on their websites without any additional setup. It generates a serverless function that handles form submissions and provides options to route submissions to email, external APIs, or store them in a database. GitHub Pages does not have a built-in form handling feature and requires users to use third-party services or custom solutions.
Collaboration and Workflow: GitHub Pages is tightly integrated with GitHub, which makes it an ideal choice for developers who already use GitHub for version control and collaboration. It simplifies the workflow by automatically deploying changes whenever code is pushed to the repository. Netlify, on the other hand, provides a more comprehensive collaboration and workflow management system. It allows users to create multiple deployment branches, set up preview environments for pull requests, and perform A/B testing.

GitHub Pages vs Netlify

Overview