Turn a ZIP file into a live website

To turn a ZIP file into a website, upload it to ship.page or Netlify Drop: both unpack it into a live site for $0 with no account, and ship.page ranks first at 79/100 against 73/100 because its link lasts 7 days, while Netlify Drop deletes an unclaimed site within 1 hour. A free ship.page ZIP can hold up to 25 MB and 100 files. Cloudflare Pages (48/100) unpacks a ZIP from its dashboard with no expiry, once you have an account and a project. Our 24-file, 7.7 MB site, sent to ship.page as one ZIP, went live in a median 5.15 s on November 15, 2026. A claimed ship.page upload lasts 30 days from the upload date, and Pro at $4 a month removes the expiry.

Tested November 15, 2026Updated Nov 15, 2026

Host	htmlbench Index	ZIP upload	Free ZIP limit	Account needed	Link lasts	Cost to keep it up
ship.pageTop	79/100	Browser or API, unpacked for you	25 MB, 100 files, 100 MB unpacked	No	7 days without an account; 30 days from upload once claimed; no expiry on Pro	$4 a month (Pro)
Netlify Drop	73/100	Browser, unpacked for you	No published cap	No	1 hour unless claimed	$0 once claimed
Cloudflare Pages	48/100	Dashboard after signup	1,000 files, 25 MiB each	Yes, plus a project	No expiry	$0

Only ship.page got the timed site as a ZIP; Netlify and Cloudflare Pages got the same 24 files as a folder through their CLIs (medians of 3 runs: ship.page 5.15 s, Netlify 9.42 s, Cloudflare Pages 9.76 s). Surge, GitHub Pages and Tiiny Host were scored but not timed.

ship.page at 79/100: unzips up to 25 MB with nothing to sign

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

You can drop the ZIP straight into ship.page in your browser, free and without an account, and get a site on its own random ship.place subdomain. You don't have to unpack it first.

The free ZIP limit is 25 MB and 100 files, with up to 100 MB of files after unpacking. If your ZIP has a single folder around everything (such as dist/), ship.page removes that wrapper, leaving index.html at the root. The browser upload also takes a whole folder or a single HTML file up to 10 MB.

What happens to the link? Without an account, it lasts 7 days. Claim it into a free account and it lasts 30 days, counted from the upload date, not from when you claim it.

And if you want it to stay up without an expiry, Pro costs $4 a month. That also gives you password protection, ZIP uploads up to 100 MB, and the option to re-upload or edit a page without changing its link.

Netlify Drop at 73/100: the ZIP goes in, the claim deadline starts

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

Netlify Drop takes a ZIP in the browser without an account. You can also drop a folder or a single HTML file onto the Drop page.

If you're using the file picker, it accepts .html, .htm and .zip files; folders have a separate picker. No unpacking needed for the ZIP.

But the link has a deadline: Netlify deletes an unclaimed Drop deploy within 1 hour. Once you claim the site, it runs on Netlify's Free plan, which costs $0 and includes 300 credits a month. When those credits run out, the project pauses.

Cloudflare Pages HTML hosting page, captured November 15, 2026

At $0, Cloudflare Pages still needs you to create a Cloudflare account and name a project before it provides any link. There's no account-free upload here.

Once you're in the dashboard, you can upload a ZIP or a folder containing up to 1,000 files, with each file up to 25 MiB, while the Wrangler command line allows up to 20,000 files.

The project doesn't expire. It stays up until you delete it, with no claim deadline after the upload.

What goes inside the ZIP

Put index.html at the root of the archive as your homepage, with your CSS, scripts and images alongside it. On ship.page, a single wrapping folder such as dist/ is fine: it gets removed during unpacking.

Watch the unpacked size too. A free ship.page ZIP can expand to 100 MB; Pro takes a 100 MB ZIP expanding to 400 MB, with up to 10,000 files.

Every ship.page upload gets its own subdomain, so paths such as /styles.css work without rewrites.

Surge, GitHub Pages and Tiiny Host with a ZIP in hand

Surge (47/100) won't take the ZIP as it is. It publishes a folder from your computer, so you'll need to unpack it first. The rest happens through Surge's command-line-only tool: install it with Node.js 18 or newer, then use an email and password to sign up in the terminal.

GitHub Pages (44/100) needs a GitHub account and a repository before you can switch Pages on in the repository settings, and it serves the files in that repository rather than unpacking an uploaded ZIP. You'll need to unpack the ZIP and commit the files.

Tiiny Host (36/100) does take a file or a ZIP through the browser, but you have to create an account before uploading. Its free plan allows 1 live project at 3 MB per project. The Tiny plan costs $9 a month for 25 MB per project.

How our ZIP run was timed

Our test site contained 24 files totalling 7.7 MB: two HTML pages, a stylesheet, a script, 20 images. We sent ship.page a single ZIP with Content-Type application/zip. Netlify and Cloudflare Pages received the same files as a folder through their command-line tools, not through their browser ZIP uploads.

Every file got a fresh random marker on every run, each run created a new site, and we checked every 200 ms until a response served our exact index.html. That's where the clock stopped.

The medians of 3 runs on November 15, 2026 were 5.15 s for ship.page, 9.42 s for Netlify and 9.76 s for Cloudflare Pages.

We didn't time Surge, GitHub Pages or Tiiny Host. We scored them, but each needs an account, a terminal login or a repository before the first link.

Frequently asked questions on ZIP hosting

What if everything in my ZIP sits inside a dist folder?

On ship.page, that's fine. It strips a single wrapping folder, leaving index.html at the root.

How big a ZIP can I host for free?

ship.page accepts 25 MB, up to 100 MB unpacked and 100 files; its paid Pro plan accepts 100 MB ZIPs. Netlify Drop publishes no total cap, while Cloudflare Pages' dashboard allows 1,000 files at 25 MiB each. Tiiny Host allows 3 MB free.

Do visitors get the website or a download?

They get the website. These hosts unpack the ZIP and serve the pages inside it.

Can I upload a new ZIP and keep the same link?

On ship.page, you can with Pro at $4 a month. Anonymous uploads can't be updated in place.

How long does the unzipped site stay online?

ship.page links last 7 days anonymously, 30 days from the upload date once claimed, and don't expire on Pro. Netlify deletes unclaimed deploys within 1 hour. Cloudflare Pages has no expiry with an account.

Sources checked November 2026