The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is maybe the most interesting developments of the current cloud computing era; having AWS create a dedicated branch for european workloads is the next big move. But, how do you run a static website without using US vendors at all?
When thinking about serving static websites, there is way more involved than just the plain HTML files and a web server. This guide will cover:
- Registering a domain,
- Managing DNS configuration,
- Hosting a source code
gitrepository, - Automated deployments on new commits, and
- Static Hosting of the built website.
All of this using only european services. Besides registering the domains, all services can be used for free on personal projects.
Registering a Domain
For registering domain names, managing name servers, and contact information, I can highly recommend EuroDNS from Luxembourg. They have reasonable prices and are doing a great job for over a decade now.
Managing DNS
Depending on your needs for DNS hosting, I can recommend going with deSEC e.V., a charitable organization in Germany that offers free DNS hosting, or nanelo if you are up to pay for DNS services.
GIT Repository
For the example of sbstjn.de, I use Codeberg for hosting the git repository. Codeberg e.V. is a registered non-profit association based in Berlin, Germany.
Codeberg is using Forgejo, which is build by Codeberg. Perfect example for eat your own dogfood. Besides Codeberg there are countless alternatives available using the same stack.
Static Hosting
Finally, it’s about hosting! statichost.eu is offering services to run static websites without personal data collection; from Sweden.
Automation
Luckily, statichost supports automatic deployments with basic HTTP requests. And Codeberg, or Forgejo in general, supports configuring webhooks as well.
BAM, That’s it! 🎉
A static website hosted on european servers using european services and companies. The future will be interesting …