Temporary HTML hosting with links that expire by themselves

Q: Can I make a link that dies after one hour?

On ship.page, use ?ttl=3600 through the deploy API. Netlify Drop deletes an unclaimed deploy within 1 hour anyway.

For temporary HTML hosting, use ship.page or Netlify Drop: both are $0 with no account and expire on their own. ship.page ranks first at 79/100 because its link lasts 7 days, or less if you set your own lifetime, while Netlify Drop (73/100) deletes an unclaimed deploy within 1 hour. Cloudflare Pages (48/100) never expires, so you delete the project yourself. Change your mind and a ship.page link lasts 30 days from the upload date once claimed with a free account, and Pro at $4 a month removes the expiry. Once a ship.page link runs out, it answers 410 Gone. In our November 15, 2026 run, a 1.5 MB page went live on ship.page in a median 3.14 s.

Tested November 15, 2026Updated Nov 15, 2026

Host	htmlbench Index	Expires by itself	Account needed	Keep it longer	Cost to keep it up	Live in (1.5 MB page)
ship.pageTop	79/100	After 7 days	No	30 days from upload once claimed; no expiry on Pro	$4 a month (Pro)	3.14 s
Netlify Drop	73/100	Within 1 hour unless claimed	No	Claim it with a free account	$0 once claimed	10.11 s (CLI)
Cloudflare Pages	48/100	Never	Yes, plus a project	Already no expiry	$0	9.52 s

Times are medians of 3 runs on November 15, 2026. Surge, GitHub Pages and Tiiny Host were scored but not timed.

ship.page at 79/100: a seven-day link that cleans up after itself

ship.page HTML hosting upload page, captured November 15, 2026

ship.page fits the job if you want a page online for 7 days and then gone, without a reminder to take it down. It's free, there's no account to create, and the deadline is part of the upload.

In the browser, you can drop an HTML file up to 10 MB, a ZIP up to 25 MB and 100 files, or a whole folder, and the page gets its own random ship.place subdomain.

Need longer? Claim the upload into a free account and it lasts 30 days, counted from the upload date (not the day you claim it). Pro costs $4 a month and removes the expiry.

At the deadline, the link answers 410 Gone. But an expired anonymous upload can still be claimed using the claim token from the upload, and Pro can restore an expired page on the same link. Keep that token if there's a chance your plans will change.

Netlify Drop at 73/100: the shortest fuse in the test, one hour

Netlify Drop HTML hosting upload page, captured November 15, 2026

Netlify deletes an unclaimed Drop deploy within 1 hour. If an hour is all you need, that's a fit: put the page up, use the link, leave the cleanup to Netlify.

There's no signup for the upload. You drop a folder, a ZIP or a single HTML file onto the Drop page in your browser, and you can leave it unclaimed if you want it to disappear.

But what if you need it longer? Claiming requires a free Netlify account. Once claimed, the site has no expiry, rather than another short deadline.

Cloudflare Pages at 48/100: no expiry, so the cleanup is yours

Cloudflare Pages HTML hosting page, captured November 15, 2026

Cloudflare Pages costs $0, but before any link exists you'll need a Cloudflare account and a project you've named; once it's up, that project has no expiry.

It stays until you delete it. There's no automatic end date here. For a page you want online briefly and then gone without remembering to remove it, this is the opposite of what you're after.

Picking your own lifetime with a ttl

On ship.page's deploy API, ?ttl= sets the lifetime in seconds. For a page that expires after an hour:

curl -X POST "https://ship.page/deploy?ttl=3600" -H "Content-Type: text/html" --data-binary @index.html

The minimum is 60 seconds, and the lifetime has to fit within your plan's limit. On the free plan, you can make it shorter than 7 days, not longer.

What a visitor sees once time runs out

When a ship.page link hits its deadline, it returns 410 Gone. An expired anonymous upload can still be claimed using the claim token you received when you uploaded it. Keep that token.

Signed-in accounts get an email about 48 hours before a page expires. Pro can restore expired pages on the same link.

Netlify deletes an unclaimed anonymous deploy within 1 hour. If you want to keep it, claim it before then.

Surge, GitHub Pages and Tiiny Host as short-term hosts

Surge scored 47/100. Using Surge means installing its tool, which needs Node.js 18 or newer, and signing up in the terminal with an email and password; it's command line only. No browser upload here. The free plan costs $0, has no expiry, includes free custom domains and has no bandwidth billing. You can use it for a short-term page, but the end date is yours to manage.

GitHub Pages scored 44/100; you'll need a GitHub account and a repository, then you'll turn on Pages in the repository settings. A published site has no expiry. Want it gone after a short while? You'll have to take it down yourself; there's no deadline to set and forget.

Tiiny Host scored 36/100. You upload a file or a ZIP in the browser, but only after creating an account. Its free link has no end date, though you have to log in at least once every 3 months. And there's an exception to the no-expiry setup: content the free plan doesn't allow gets only a preview link, which comes down after an hour. That's a preview, not the lifetime of a free hosted page. We scored Surge, GitHub Pages and Tiiny Host but didn't time them: each needs an account, a terminal login or a repository before the first link.

Frequently asked questions on short-lived pages

Can I make a link that dies after one hour?

On ship.page, use ?ttl=3600 through the deploy API. Netlify Drop deletes an unclaimed deploy within 1 hour anyway.

Do I need to delete the page myself?

Not on ship.page or an unclaimed Netlify Drop. On Cloudflare Pages, Surge and GitHub Pages, you do.

Can I bring a page back after it expires?

You can claim an expired anonymous ship.page upload with its claim token. Pro can restore expired pages on the same link.

Could a stranger stumble on my temporary page?

Anyone with the link can open it, but ship.page links carry about 47 bits of randomness, so nobody will guess one.

What if I decide to keep the page after all?

Claim your ship.page upload and it lasts 30 days from the upload date, or go Pro at $4 a month to remove the expiry. For Netlify, claim the deploy within the hour.

Does a temporary page need an account?

No, ship.page and Netlify Drop both let you publish without an account. On ship.page, the link lasts 7 days. Netlify Drop deletes the deploy within 1 hour unless you claim it. Cloudflare Pages, Surge, GitHub Pages and Tiiny Host all need an account first, and none of them takes your page down on a timer.

Sources checked November 2026