Is there a free alternative to Google Sites that’s open source? I want one with free custom domains, not subdomains.
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.
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.
https://neocities.org/ might work for you.
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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.
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.
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
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.
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
Yes, absolutely. Odd choice of words I suppose. :)
You want a website? https://wordpress.org/ is open source
Yes, but it’s a script you install on a web server. I want a builder that’s similar to Google Sites.
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.
what about wordpress.com ? (yeah, it’s different but by the same developers)
basic plan is free, yup. iirc you have to pay to ‘bring your own domain’ (vs using a subdomain off theirs’)
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.
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Sure, feel free to enlighten me about the differences. They’re both content management systems, no?
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I understand. Coming back to the comment in question:
The point is not that you can host wordpress on your system but that OP seems to be searching for a fully managed cms (or static site creation tool) but open source and for free(?).
Google is (as we know) not doing anything for free. They want the data, the market dominance and the traffic so they can make money from it.
From a usability standpoint they‘re both content management systems in which a person with limited technical knowledge can design their own sites and publish them without having to resort to third party designers.
That is why I said they’re the same. I was referring to the „wordpress is a script“ (it is not).
TL;DR: If OP wants managed, they either pay in data or in money, period. Managed wordpress (or joomla or others) is the equivalent to this service.
Hugo, Jekill, Docusaurus, host on github pages, netlify. Buy a domain for 15$ per year.
