Netlify Alternative: Upload a ZIP, Get a Faster Static Site

Measured on sites we host, not on a lab benchmark

Time to first byte

~100ms

Median on live customer sites, served from Cloudflare’s edge.

Edge cities

330+

Your visitor is served from the one nearest to them.

Build minutes needed

You upload a finished folder. There is nothing to build.

Why people look for a Netlify alternative

Netlify is a deploy pipeline. Most static sites just need a fast host.

Netlify is excellent at what it was built for: git-connected builds, previews and functions. The friction shows up when all you have is a folder of HTML and some visitors on 4G.

One shared credit pool, and a hard stop

Netlify’s free plan gives 300 credits a month across bandwidth, deploys and compute. Bandwidth is 20 credits per GB and a production deploy is 15, so roughly 15 GB of traffic or 20 deploys empties it. At zero, every site on the account shows a “site not available” page until the month resets.

Fylo plans are flat. Re-uploading a site never costs a credit, and a traffic spike does not take the site offline.

A git repo and a build for a folder of HTML

The intended path is repository, build command, publish directory. Netlify Drop skips that for a one-off, but there is no optimization on the way through: the folder is served exactly as it went in, 2 MB hero JPEG included.

Fylo takes the ZIP and runs the pipeline on it: image conversion, font subsetting, minification, lazy loading.

Speed is your job, not the host’s

Netlify’s image CDN needs URL rewrites or a framework adapter; minification and font work need build plugins. Fine for a developer with a pipeline. Not fine for an agency delivering a Webflow export or a clinic that paid for a website once.

On Fylo these are toggles in a dashboard. No config file, no plugin, no rebuild on your side.

Netlify plan details as published on netlify.com in 2026 for accounts created after September 2025; older accounts may be on the legacy 100 GB / 300 build-minute model. Check their pricing page for the current numbers.

Fylo vs Netlify

Side by side, for a finished static site

Vercel and Cloudflare Pages are in the table because they are the other names on every “Netlify alternatives” list. All four are good products; they are built for different people.

What you need	Fylo.Host	Netlify	Vercel	Cloudflare Pages
Upload a finished folder as a ZIPNo repo, no CLI	✓	Netlify Drop	✗	Direct upload
Images converted to WebP / AVIF for youWithout changing your HTML	✓	URL rewrite / adapter	Framework only	Paid add-on
Font subsetting, minification, lazy loadingApplied by the host	✓	Build plugins	Framework only	✗
Responsive srcset and LCP preload injected	✓	✗	Framework only	✗
Free plan stays online under a traffic spikeNo hard credit cutoff	✓	Pauses at 0 credits	Usage caps	✓
Contact form without a backend	✓	✓	✗	✗
Custom domain with automatic SSL	✓	✓	✓	✓
Git-connected builds and deploy previews	✗	✓	✓	✓
Serverless functions and SSR	✗	✓	✓	✓

Upload your site free See Fylo plans

Which one is for you

Stay on Netlify if you need the pipeline. Move if you need the speed.

A switch that costs you a feature you rely on is a bad switch. Here is the honest split.

Netlify is still the right pick when

Your site runs Netlify Functions, Edge Functions or a framework in server mode (Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit with SSR).
A team merges to production daily and lives on deploy previews per pull request.
You depend on Netlify Identity, split testing or the Blobs store.
You already have a build pipeline that does image and font work, and you are happy maintaining it.

Fylo is the better fit when

The site is finished: HTML, CSS, JS, images, fonts. A Hugo, Astro, Jekyll or Eleventy build, a Webflow or Framer export, a static WordPress export, or hand-written pages.
Your visitors are on phones and mobile data, and Core Web Vitals decide whether the page ranks.
Nobody on the project wants to own a build config, a plugin list or a credit meter.
You deliver client sites and want to hand over a dashboard with toggles, not a repository.

Moving from Netlify

Netlify to Fylo in four steps, no downtime

Around fifteen minutes for a typical site. Netlify keeps serving the old copy until your DNS change lands, so visitors never see a gap.

STEP 01

Get the built folder

The folder Netlify was publishing: dist, out, _site, public or build. Lost it? Open the latest deploy in Netlify and download it.

dist/index.html
dist/about.html
dist/css/main.css
dist/img/hero.jpg ← 2.1 MB

STEP 02

Zip it and upload

Compress the folder so index.html sits at the top level of the ZIP, then drop it on the homepage. Live on a fylo.dev address in seconds.

Drop dist.zip hereindex.html at the root of the ZIP

STEP 03

Switch on the optimizations

In the performance tab, turn on the toggles you want. Fylo rebuilds an optimized copy; your uploaded files stay exactly as they were.

hero.jpg → hero.avif · 180 KB

Fonts subset to used glyphs

CSS and JS minified

STEP 04

Point your domain

Add the domain in the dashboard, change the record at your registrar, wait for SSL. Then remove the site from Netlify.

; at your registrar
www CNAME your-site.fylo.dev
; SSL issued automatically

Start with step 2 No card needed for the free plan.

What runs on your upload

The performance work you would otherwise script yourself

Every item below is a toggle in the dashboard. Turn one on and Fylo rebuilds the optimized copy at the edge; turn it off and the original is back.

WebP and AVIF imagesPNG, JPEG and GIF converted on the way out, with the original as fallback.

Font subsettingOnly the glyphs your pages use ship. A 200 KB font often becomes 20.

HTML, CSS and JS minifiedWhitespace and comments gone, served pre-compressed.

Lazy loadingBelow-the-fold images and iframes wait until they are needed.

YouTube facadesA thumbnail stands in for the 500 KB player until someone presses play.

Responsive srcsetPhones get phone-sized images instead of the desktop original.

LCP preloadThe largest above-the-fold image is preloaded so the page paints sooner.

Contact formsA drop-in replacement for Netlify Forms. How it works

Nothing is applied silently. You choose what runs, and you can check the result on the speed checker before pointing a domain.

Other Netlify alternatives

The rest of the shortlist, and who each one suits

If Fylo is not the fit, one of these probably is. The one-line verdicts are ours; the products are all solid.

VercelNext.js teams

The natural home for Next.js and other React frameworks with server rendering. Git-first, no ZIP upload, usage-metered plans.

Cloudflare PagesDevelopers on CF

Same edge network Fylo runs on, with direct upload and generous free bandwidth. You wire up image optimization and minification yourself.

GitHub PagesDocs and portfolios

Free and simple if the site lives in a public repository. No custom optimization, no forms, and repository size limits apply.

RenderStatic plus a backend

Static hosting alongside web services and databases in one dashboard. Useful when the static site is one piece of a larger app.

SurgeCLI one-liners

Publish a folder from the terminal in one command. Minimal by design; no optimization pipeline and no dashboard toggles.

Fylo.HostFinished static sites

Upload a ZIP, toggle the optimizations, serve from 330+ cities. Built for sites whose visitors are on phones and whose owners are not running a pipeline.

Who moves

Sites that leave Netlify for Fylo

FROM A GENERATORHugo, Astro, Jekyll, EleventyBuild locally, zip the output folder, upload. The generator stays; the pipeline goes.

FROM A BUILDERWebflow and Framer exportsExported sites arrive with heavy images. Toggle conversion on and stop paying for the builder’s hosting.

FROM WORDPRESSStatic WordPress exportsSimply Static or WP2Static output. No PHP, no plugin updates, and the images finally get compressed.

FROM AN AGENCYClient sites handed overGive the client a dashboard with toggles instead of a repository and a credit meter to babysit.

FROM A PROMPTAI-generated sitesChatGPT or Claude wrote the pages. Zip the folder and it is live; the optimizations fix what the prompt did not.

FAQ

Questions people ask before switching

For finished static sites, yes: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images and fonts. Fylo does not run serverless functions, build pipelines or server-side rendering. If your site depends on Netlify Functions or a framework’s server mode, Netlify is still the better fit.

No. Fylo takes the output folder as a ZIP. Build with Hugo, Astro, Jekyll, Eleventy, Vite or nothing at all on your own machine, zip the result and upload. There are no build minutes or deploy credits to run out of.

Fylo has its own static site contact form feature. Point your form at the Fylo endpoint and submissions arrive in your dashboard and inbox. The form markup stays plain HTML.

Fylo converts PNG, JPEG and GIF to WebP or AVIF, generates responsive srcset sizes and lazy-loads off-screen images. Each optimization is a toggle in the performance tab, so you decide what runs. Nothing changes your original files.

Netlify’s Free plan draws from a monthly pool of credits shared across bandwidth, deploys and compute, and pauses your sites when the pool is empty. Fylo has a free plan and flat monthly plans; there is no deploy credit and re-uploading a site does not cost anything. Current plans are on the pricing section of the homepage.

From Cloudflare’s edge network, which spans 330+ cities. Real sites we host measure a median time-to-first-byte of about 100 ms.

Yes. Add the domain in the Fylo dashboard, update the DNS record at your registrar and SSL is issued automatically. Keep the Netlify site live until DNS has propagated so there is no downtime.

No. Fylo is built for sites whose visitors are on mid-range phones and mobile networks, which describes most of India and much of the world. Sites are served from the edge location nearest each visitor wherever they are.

Same folder you gave Netlify.
Faster site on the other side.

Drop your ZIP. We handle the milliseconds.

Upload your site free No signup. No server setup. Live in seconds.

The Netlify alternative that makes the site faster, not just live.