# GitHub Pages, what it is and how websites use it. Free static hosting directly from a GitHub repository. Supports Jekyll for static site generation and custom domains with HTTPS. Ideal for documentation, portfolios, and simple websites. - **Status:** Modern. Popular for open-source documentation and personal sites. Simple workflow with automatic deployment on every push to the repository. - **Category:** [Servers & Hosting](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server) - **First release:** 2008 - **License:** Proprietary - **Official website:** https://pages.github.com - **Documentation:** https://docs.github.com/en/pages - **Page:** https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/github-pages ## GitHub Pages on audited websites 66 of the 16,845 websites audited by be1st run GitHub Pages (<1%). That ranks it #22 of the 34 technologies in Servers & Hosting we have seen in audits. ### Websites running GitHub Pages vs all websites - **Web score:** 70 (all websites 72) - **SEO:** 76 (all websites 79) - **Security:** 48 (all websites 59) - **Performance:** 81 (all websites 72) - **AI Readiness:** 31 (all websites 31) ### Most used in Servers & Hosting 1. [Cloudflare](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/cloudflare): 22% (3,772) 2. [Vercel](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/vercel): 22% (3,635) 3. [Google CDN](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/google-cdn): 16% (2,700) 4. [nginx](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/nginx): 14% (2,284) 5. [OpenResty](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/openresty): 10% (1,707) 6. [Apache HTTP Server](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/apache-http-server): 9.3% (1,574) 7. [jsDelivr](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/jsdelivr): 7.2% (1,221) 8. [cdnjs](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/cdnjs): 6.0% (1,019) 9. [Netlify](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/netlify): 5.8% (971) 10. [AWS CloudFront](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/aws-cloudfront): 5.1% (859) ## Other technologies in Servers & Hosting - [unpkg](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/unpkg): 2.8% of websites - [Fastly](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/fastly): 1.6% of websites - [BunnyCDN](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/bunnycdn): 1.2% of websites - [Microsoft IIS](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/microsoft-iis): 1.0% of websites - [LiteSpeed](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/litespeed): <1% of websites - [Caddy](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/caddy): <1% of websites - [Amazon S3](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/amazon-s3): <1% of websites - [Google Cloud](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/google-cloud): <1% of websites - [Varnish](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/varnish): <1% of websites - [Azure](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/azure): <1% of websites - [Hostinger CDN](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/hostinger-cdn): <1% of websites - [Akamai](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server/akamai): <1% of websites [All 35 in Servers & Hosting](https://be1st.ai/technologies/server) ## Questions about GitHub Pages ### What is GitHub Pages? Free static hosting directly from a GitHub repository. Supports Jekyll for static site generation and custom domains with HTTPS. Ideal for documentation, portfolios, and simple websites. The be1st catalog lists GitHub Pages under Servers & Hosting. License of GitHub Pages: Proprietary. ### How many websites use GitHub Pages? 66 of the 16,845 websites audited by be1st run GitHub Pages (<1%), as of 8 Nov 2026. ### When was GitHub Pages first released? GitHub Pages was first released in 2008. ### Is GitHub Pages still a modern choice? Yes. GitHub Pages counts as a modern technology. Popular for open-source documentation and personal sites. Simple workflow with automatic deployment on every push to the repository. ### What are the alternatives to GitHub Pages? Technologies that do the same job as GitHub Pages include Vercel and Netlify. Numbers: latest audit of each of 16,845 websites audited by be1st, as of 8 Nov 2026.