Statichost.eu – European static site hosting

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

A new European static site hosting service promising “European infrastructure and values” is drawing interest from users who want an alternative to US-based platforms like Netlify, Vercel, and Cloudflare Pages, particularly for regulatory and data-sovereignty reasons. Commenters praise its simplicity, EU focus, free tier, and responsive one-person operation, but many find the paid pricing and metered bandwidth high compared with cheap VPS options, question technical choices like git-centered deploys and build-minute limits, and point out inconsistencies such as third-party analytics and non‑EU components. Overall it highlights a trade-off between indie, regionally anchored hosting with predictable caps and the cheaper, more feature-rich but riskier offerings from large global providers.

Deployment Model & Features

  • Service is tightly coupled to Git-based workflows; non-Git users can upload tarballs or use a provided “direct upload” script, but find this less convenient than SFTP/WebDAV/rsync.
  • Some want SFTP/WebDAV; others note WebDAV’s historical issues and prefer SFTP.
  • Uses a CDN abstraction (on top of Bunny, per one commenter) rather than a single server.
  • Automatically issues TLS certificates.
  • “Build minutes” are metered, confusing some who expect static hosting without server-side builds; others note many static sites are built from source on the host.
  • One person reports that rebuild triggers were unauthenticated (anyone knowing the site URL could trigger builds); current status unclear.

Pricing, Bandwidth, and Value

  • Many view 9 €/month as expensive for “just static hosting,” especially with metered bandwidth, compared to:
    • Cheap EU VPSes (Hetzner, Scaleway) with far higher or “unlimited” traffic.
    • Shared hosting with mail at similar prices.
    • Free tiers on Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, etc.
  • Counterarguments:
    • It’s a managed, multi-region CDN with atomic deploys and a capped bill, run by a small indie vendor without VC subsidies.
    • For businesses, 9 €/month is trivial; expectations of “big-co” features plus free pricing from indie services are seen as unrealistic.

“European” Positioning & Jurisdiction

  • Core marketing claim is “European company, infrastructure, and values.”
  • Debate over what “European” means (EU vs geographic Europe) and whether it provides real legal/privacy advantages.
  • Some welcome a non-US option and would actively prefer paying an EU provider over using free US services.
  • Others argue EU surveillance/censorship and extraterritorial US influence mean “European” doesn’t guarantee better protections.
  • Critiques:
    • Site appears hosted via a UK company, raising questions post‑Brexit.
    • Uses Let’s Encrypt (US-based) certificates and third-party analytics/status tooling, seen as at odds with a strict “European autonomy” narrative.

UX, Privacy & Miscellaneous

  • Mixed reactions to site design: some call it cheap and inconsistent; others find menu wrapping acceptable.
  • Very short terms of service are praised.
  • Privacy policy vs practice questioned: marketing claims “no data collected” while a Simple Analytics pixel and a status page sending data to Google/Doubleclick are present; defenders argue the analytics are minimal, EU-based, and non-identifying.
  • Broader tangents cover:
    • Whether Git/version control is overkill for rarely-updated static sites.
    • Frustration with centralization on AWS/Cloudflare and with marketing that loudly excludes them.