Kinsta Static Site Hosting Review: Deploying Lightning Fast Websites for Free

WordPress is flexible, dynamic, and powerful. It can be used to build virtually any kind of website in the world. Since it’s so dynamic, you can create and change your site’s content with the push of a button. There’s a reason it’s used by some of the world’s largest and most successful websites.

However, full WordPress installations might not be necessary for some site owners or agency owners managing many sites. Those looking to implement headless WordPress (or another backend) or deploy static websites for a roster of client sites that don’t need dynamic content will find static hosting valuable.

Kinsta recently released free static website hosting for up to 100 websites. In this review, we’ll examine the service in depth and show you how it works so you can decide if it’s the right fit for your site/s.

Kinsta Static Site Hosting Review: What Does This Host Offer?

Kinsta is a popular and high-performing WordPress managed host. It’s not only one of the top WordPress hosts out there, but it also offers a free site migration service from any host.

Recently, they launched a free static hosting service that lets you host up to 100 static websites. Static website use continues to grow and makes sense for many website or agency owners who don’t need dynamic websites.

Here are some of the main benefits of static hosting:

• Improved site security. WordPress is very secure, but plugins and themes can make your site vulnerable. With a simple HTML site, there are no risks with plugins or themes or a brute-force attack via your website login.
• Better speed and performance. Since static websites are simple HTML, it’s much simpler and faster for the server to render. They also work better with CDNs and can handle heavy traffic without breaking.
• Less site maintenance. Standard WordPress sites have many moving parts, leading to things breaking and your site going offline. Static sites are as simple as they come, so issues are much less likely to occur.

Here are a few ways Kinsta Static Site Hosting stands out:

• Uses the edge network of 260+ global servers for improved speed and performance.
• Supports popular static site generators while handling the build process for you.
• Let’s you add custom domains for your static sites with free SSL certificates.

Why Use Static Websites?

Static websites have been around for a very long time, but they’ve recently become more popular and widespread. We touched on a few of the main reasons to use static sites above, but now, let’s go deeper into the most common use cases.

Avoiding Downtime

If you have a site that receives huge spikes in traffic, like during a holiday sale or PR campaign, you want to ensure your site remains online. Not only that, but you want it to load quickly. Static sites, especially when coupled with a CDN, retain their high speeds no matter how much traffic you’re getting. When using a CDN, all pages on a static site can be served up completely since they exist as standalone files.

When Security is a Priority

Websites in the financial or security spaces need robust security practices in place. Static websites aren’t impenetrable, but they pose fewer security risks overall. For example, with WordPress, many vulnerabilities come through plugins and themes. With a static site, you don’t have any of these risks.

Managing Multiple Simple Sites

If you’re an agency owner or developer managing many simple sites for clients, you might find static sites easier to manage. This is especially true if they don’t require frequent content updates. Since static sites are very secure and fast it can lead to less ongoing maintenance requests on your end. There simply isn’t the need for continuous upgrades and optimizations.

Deploying Static Sites with Kinsta: An In-Depth Look

Now that you understand the benefits of static hosting and why you might want to use it, let’s show you how easy it is to deploy a new site using Kinsta static website hosting.

Note: If you don’t have a static site, you can easily convert an existing WordPress site into a static site using a plugin like Simply Static. Simply install the plugin, and it’ll automatically create a cloned static version of your site you can upload to the Git repository of your choice.

Once you’ve created and verified your account, simply click on the Static Sites menu option and then click Add a static site.

Then, you’ll need to connect to a git provider of your choice. Currently, GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab are supported. After that, select the repository where your static website files are located.

Once they’re connected, your site will automatically be deployed. You can view your current site details and latest deployments directly from your hosting dashboard.

Managing Deployments

The Deployments tab lets you view and manage your current deployments. If you’ve made changes to your site, you can redeploy them here to make them live.

Domain Management

Clicking the Domains tab takes you to the domain management screen. Here, you can add new domains for your static sites. Once you add a domain, you need to update your DNS records with your registrar.

Hosting Settings

The Settings tab gives you more granular control over your hosting environment. You have control over the build command, node version, and more. You’ll also fully delete sites from this screen.

Going Beyond Static Site Hosting

Beyond the free static website hosting, you always have the option to upgrade to a premium plan to host your WordPress sites and applications.

Within the main hosting dashboard, you can upgrade to the plan that best suits your needs in a few clicks.

One great thing about utilizing free static website hosting is that if you need to host a full-fledged WordPress site, you can easily upgrade and host all your sites in one place.

There’s even built-in DNS management, so you can manage your DNS records, including your SPF and DKIM records, for sending transactional emails.

Of course, you don’t need to upgrade your plan to take advantage of static site hosting, but it’s a nice option to have.

Real-Time Site Performance

You’re probably wondering how fast is Kinsta Static Site Hosting?

For this test, I used the Simply Static plugin to convert an existing WordPress site to a static version. Then, I uploaded that site to GitHub and connected it to Kinsta.

Here are the results from a GTMetrix test:

As you can see, the largest contentful paint is 346ms, which is incredibly fast. Since it’s a static site, the site speed report also shows fewer issues.

Real User Reviews And Feedback

Since Kinsta free static hosting is so new, there aren’t any user reviews that pertain specifically to static site hosting.

However, everywhere you look online, Kinsta has hundreds of glowing reviews. Since users love their existing offerings, you can expect free hosting to be the same level of quality.

Kinsta currently has a nearly perfect 5-star rating on G2, with over 500 five-star reviews.

Kinsta Static Site Hosting Pricing

If you’re hosting static websites, your hosting is completely free.

The limits to free hosting plan are pretty generous:

• Host up to 100 sites overall
• Build your site up to 1GB with one concurrent build
• 600 minutes of build time per month across all sites
• 100 GB bandwidth per month across all deployed sites

You can monitor your current bandwidth, build minutes, and the number of static sites within your hosting dashboard.

You can upgrade to other forms of premium WordPress hosting. But, there are no fees to host static sites within the monthly limits.

Kinsta Static Hosting Support and Documentation

Kinsta provides detailed documentation that’ll walk you through every step of deploying your first static website and managing your free hosting. If you’re new to using Git repositories, then you’ll find a few in-depth tutorials and blog posts that’ll get you up to speed.

You’ll also find a pop-up window that gives you a detailed breakdown of your site’s uptime status along with every aspect of the platform. It shows the uptime of your control panel, Kinsta CDN, data centers around the world, and more.

You don’t get access to live chat support as a free user. However, there is a community forum where you can post questions and have Kinsta staff help troubleshoot your issues. Overall, it’s a very active and helpful community.

Final Thoughts on Free Static Site Hosting by Kinsta

Overall, Kinsta free static site hosting is basically a no-brainer solution for any site owner who needs to host static websites. If you’re already using Kinsta WordPress hosting, you can use this free add-on. Meanwhile, if you’re already hosting static sites elsewhere, you can move your sites to Kinsta to save money.

It’s high-performing and easy to use, and the built-in Cloudflare edge network ensures your sites are fast, no matter where your visitors happen to be.

The free plan is generous and lets you get a lot of mileage out of the sites you’re hosting. Plus, it’s very developer-friendly with its Git-based workflows, automatic deployments, and ability to use environment variables.

I was impressed by how fast and easy it was to deploy a new static site. If you’ve been thinking about moving to static sites for your website or sites you manage, this is a service worth testing out.