this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Is there a free alternative to Google Sites that's open source? I want one with free custom domains, not subdomains.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Forget about free domains if you want to do something remotely serious with them. A real domain is few dollars/year and AFAIK you could use it coupled with GitHub Pages for simple, static websites or with altervista.org if you need WordPress.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I second GitHub Pages! I host a professional website/online CV there with a dot com domain for less than 10€/year. There are Jekyll templates to do that or pay someone to make you some custom CSS and Html that's easy to maintain.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I feel like there's an inherent misunderstanding in your query. If you want to run on your own domain - you run your own stuff (for the most part). You need a webserver, that's about it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I dat to check google sites first since I never used it before.

From the quick glance I gathered, I‘d say there is no open source equivalent with free custom domains.

Registering top level domains is not available for free I think. The closest I know is duckdns.

If google is giving out top level domains for free now then it is a market dominance strategy because nobody else can do it I think.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If google is giving out top level domains for free now then it is a market dominance strategy because nobody else can do it I think.

I don't they do, they only give free subdomains

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That would make sense. But in that case I don’t understand why op is asking for an open source equivalent with free top level domains.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

maybe they meant adding domains for free, most free hosts don't allow you to use custom domains for free and require a paid plan for that. so could be that OP is willing to pay for the domain itself but not for using it, which is fair

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, absolutely. Odd choice of words I suppose. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Hugo, Jekill, Docusaurus, host on github pages, netlify. Buy a domain for 15$ per year.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yes, but it's a script you install on a web server. I want a builder that's similar to Google Sites.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Domain registrations are not free. It's an annual fee, I don't think any company will give those out for free. I can recommend using https://www.namecheap.com/ for domain registrations.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

what about wordpress.com ? (yeah, it's different but by the same developers)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

basic plan is free, yup. iirc you have to pay to 'bring your own domain' (vs using a subdomain off theirs')

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As a developer: google sites is 100% the exact same as wordpress, just looks better.

I’m not gonna slander you for not knowing the difference between a host and a content management system.

The issue seems to be that google offers a pretty foolproof experience for people with limited technical knowledge. That is not the case with the majority of open source systems.

Additionally: from what I hear, you wont get free top level domains with sites and not with other providers so please accept that you wont get this for free.

Have a good one.