← Blog Ship July 15, 2026 · The ReDock team

How to deploy a website without any money: the complete zero-budget stack

A genuinely zero-budget path from local development to a live, public website, free tooling, free edge hosting, and honest limits.

You can take a website from nothing to live and public without spending a dollar. The zero-budget stack is: build the site locally on your Mac, then deploy the static output to a free edge tier. No server rental, no CI subscription, no credit card to start. ReDock — a free-while-in-alpha native macOS app — runs the whole loop: it hosts your site locally with real HTTPS, builds it with its own runtimes, and deploys to Cloudflare Workers’ free static tier, reporting the commit hash and duration.

The whole stack, piece by piece

Every layer here is free, and it’s worth naming each one so you can see there’s no hidden bill:

  • Local development environment — free. ReDock runs your site at https://name.test with a locally trusted certificate. WordPress, headless WordPress, Astro, Next.js, Node, Bun, PHP, MySQL — no terminal, no Docker. The install guide and first-site guide get you started.
  • Build tooling — free. ReDock ships its own runtimes and builds the static output. No separate CI service to pay for.
  • Hosting — free. Cloudflare Workers serves static assets on its free tier, no card to begin, with a request allowance generous enough for ordinary sites. The deploy docs cover connecting your account.
  • Sharing — free. Before you deploy, unlimited QuickShare tunnels plus three named redock.xyz subdomains let you show the site publicly at no cost. The sharing docs cover it.

The only optional cost in the whole stack is a domain name — more on that below.

The zero-server pipeline

Here’s the flow end to end:

  1. Create or import the site in ReDock. It runs locally, instantly, at a real HTTPS .test address.
  2. Build it — iterate locally with no upload step between you and the page.
  3. Share for feedback with QuickShare if you want eyes on it before launch. Show a client a WIP site covers that.
  4. Deploy in one click to Cloudflare Workers static assets. ReDock runs the real build and reports the commit hash it built from and how long it took — a failed build says so.

No SSH keys, no YAML, no pipeline to maintain. Deploy a website for free is the deeper walkthrough.

Where zero-budget hits real limits

Being honest about the edges is the point:

  • Dynamic server code per request costs something eventually. A static deploy serves static output. If your site needs a database query on every page load, the free static tier alone won’t run it. The free workaround for WordPress: run it locally in ReDock as your editor, build a static front end, deploy that. The honest Cloudflare free-tier guide covers where the static tier ends.
  • A custom domain isn’t free. You buy the name from a registrar. Without one, your site lives on a real Workers URL — public and HTTPS, just not branded. ReDock attaches one custom domain free from inside the app; see attaching a custom domain.
  • Always-on beyond the free allowance. Ordinary traffic stays inside Cloudflare’s free tier. Genuinely large or heavily dynamic sites eventually need paid features — but that’s a scaling problem, not a starting cost.

Why local-first is the right zero-budget default

Free website builders exist, but “free” there is usually a funnel: your content sits in their database, exports are lossy, and the plan nudges you to upgrade. Building locally and deploying static output keeps everything in files you own. The deployed site is just a folder of static assets, and you can switch tools any time.

It’s also faster. A local site reloads instantly, with no upload between edit and preview. Easy hosting for side projects and free hosting on your Mac make the fuller case.

FAQ

Is this genuinely free or a trial?

Genuinely free. ReDock is free, and Cloudflare’s static free tier needs no card to start. The only optional cost is a domain name you buy from a registrar.

Can I deploy WordPress with zero budget?

Not as a live PHP site on the free static tier. The free path is headless: run WordPress locally in ReDock, build a static front end with Astro or Next.js, and deploy that.

What do I get without buying a domain?

A real, public, HTTPS URL on Cloudflare Workers — fully functional, just not branded. Attach a domain later (ReDock includes one free attachment) when the project is ready to wear its own name.

Ready to ship on a zero-dollar budget? Download ReDock to ReDock and deploy your first site for free.