Free Web Hosting for Students (2026): Every Offer, and When It Ends

Free web hosting for students exists, but almost none of it is free forever. The real student offers in October 2026 are time-limited credits and first-year domains: Azure for Students gives $100 of credit to use within 12 months with no card, Heroku gives $13 a month for 24 months to GitHub Student Developer Pack members, and Namecheap gives a .me domain free for one year. Only static hosting such as GitHub Pages carries no student clock at all.

That matters because the end of an offer is when students get surprised: a credit runs out mid-semester, a card on file starts being charged, or a domain auto-renews at full price. Below is each offer we could confirm on the provider's own page on 18 Oct 2026, how long it lasts, what happens when it ends, and which one fits a portfolio, a class project or an app.

The student hosting offers that exist right now

Most of these sit inside the GitHub Student Developer Pack, so it is worth knowing who qualifies. GitHub's own documentation lists four conditions: you are enrolled in a degree- or diploma-granting programme (high school, college, university or homeschool), you can provide documents proving current student status, you have a personal GitHub account, and you are at least 13. If recent applicants from your school verified with an academic email, GitHub will expect one from you too.

Two offers that older guides still list did not check out. DigitalOcean does not appear among the Pack's partners on the Pack page we read, and its former github-students address now loads DigitalOcean's ordinary homepage, so do not plan around a DigitalOcean student credit. Heroku's long-gone free dynos are also no help: free dynos and free Postgres ended in November 2022, which is why the student credit is the only way to run Heroku at no cost.

How long each offer really lasts

The quickest way to compare them is by the calendar. The chart plots how many months each offer covers before you either renew, pay or lose it.

Azure is the only paid-cloud offer that can outlast a degree year, because Microsoft lets you renew the subscription annually while you remain a student. Heroku's 24 months are longer on paper but come once: Heroku says a student can join the current programme for one 24-month period only, and unused monthly credit expires rather than rolling over.

Which offer fits which project

A portfolio or class website. Use GitHub Pages. It costs nothing, has no expiry tied to your studies, and works with a custom domain if you add one. If you want a domain at no cost in year one, the Namecheap student bundle pairs a .me domain with GitHub Pages setup. Our comparison of GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify and Vercel covers the limits of each static host, and custom domains on free hosting explains the DNS side.

A web app with a database. Heroku's credit is enough for a small always-on app: on Heroku's current price list a Basic dyno is $7 a month and the smallest Essential-0 Postgres database is $5, which totals $12 and fits inside the $13 monthly credit. Anything beyond the credit is charged to the card Heroku requires before it applies the offer, so watch the billing tab. For free Python and Node options that need no card at all, see our guide to free Python and Node hosting.

Learning cloud skills. Azure for Students is the broadest: the $100 credit, more than 65 always-free services and a set of services free for the first 12 months to new Azure customers. Its always-free App Service tier hosts up to 10 web or API apps with 1 GB of storage and an hour of compute a day, and Static Web Apps is free up to 100 GB of bandwidth per subscription with two custom domains. Microsoft's page describes the offer as for full-time university students; the Pack listing says 18 and over, and there is a separate Azure offer for students aged 13 to 17.

The catches nobody mentions

Domains renew. Namecheap's student FAQ says the first year of the standard bundle (.me domain, GitHub Pages setup and privacy) is free, after which you pay $15 a year. It sends an automated notice 30 days before the domain auto-renews, with an opt-out. Its first-year discounts on other extensions (for example $8.88 for a .com or $0.48 for a .tech) are first-year prices only. The nc.me programme also supports only listed universities in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, a restriction the Pack listing itself does not mention.

Credits do not stop the meter. Heroku charges the card on file for anything above $13 in a month, and at the end of the 24 months any running resources are billed unless you turn them off. Azure for Students asks for no card at sign-up, according to Microsoft's page, which makes it the lower-risk choice for a beginner who just wants to experiment.

Coursework is not a business. If the project turns into something that earns money, read the free tier's terms again. Several free static hosts restrict commercial use on their free plans, and a student credit is not meant to run a shop.

When a project outgrows free credits, cheap shared hosting is usually the next step rather than a bigger cloud bill. Namecheap's Stellar plan, for example, is $2.28 a month in its first year and about $55.88 a year after that (read 18 Oct 2026); you can compare Namecheap's shared plans or start from our honest ranking of free web hosting if free still fits.

Edge cases

• Graduating: Azure for Students renews only while you are a student, so plan a move or a pay-as-you-go switch before your final renewal date.
• High-school students: GitHub accepts applicants from 13, but the Heroku offer requires you to be 18 or over, and the general Azure for Students listing in the Pack is for 18 and over.
• No academic email: GitHub accepts official documentation, such as a school web page or letterhead letter, if your institution does not issue student addresses.
• Heroku credit is per account and cannot be moved to a Heroku Teams account or transferred later.
• Paid third-party Heroku add-ons are not covered by the student credit.