Running my website on $1 monthly

This website costs me almost nothing to run. I take advantage of a few free services. This site is fast and looks okay. Here’s what I use.

1. DNS : Cloudfare

DNS is what enables the translation of website names to IP addresses. I use Cloudflare to manage the DNS of my domain at ianmuchina.com. I can have unlimited subdomains.

2. CDN: Cloudflare

Cloudflare have over 200 datacenters worldwide meant for just this purpose.

When using Cloudflare’s Content Delivery Network, someone in Nairobi gets the site assets from a datacenter in Mombasa instead of somewhere further like France or USA.

A content delivery network greatly improves speed.

4. Framework : Jekyll

I use Jekyll to generate the static files of my website. Jekyll has some awesome free themes. However it can take a bit of time to configure for those not familiar with it.

5. Hosting: Netlify + GitHub

Netlify is what builds my site from the configuration files of my site. I use netlify with github. The static content is regenerated anytime I modify the config files

6. Domain Registrar - Namecheap

One gets a domain from a domain registrar. You can get a free one from Freenom. I have a freenom domain that I dont use at muchina.gq, but I abandoned it in favor of ianmuchina.com. Most .com domains are not that expensive and cost around $12 per year.

7. SSL: Cloudflare

A site with SSL correctly configured has a padlock alongside the domain name. When using the cloudflare CDN, your site automatically gets free SSL

TLDR:

Take advantage of Cloudflare & Github Pages and just pay for the domain.