render-static-sites

Render Static Sites

Deploys static frontends (React, Vue, Hugo, Gatsby, Docusaurus, Jekyll, etc.) to Render's global CDN with automatic TLS, Brotli compression, HTTP/2, and DDoS protection. Free tier available.

When to Use

• Deploying a static site or SPA (no server-side rendering)
• Choosing between a Static Site and a Web Service for a frontend
• Configuring SPA fallback routing, redirects/rewrites, or custom headers
• Setting up PR preview environments for a static site
• Troubleshooting build failures or stale content on a CDN-hosted site

For SSR frameworks (Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit) that need a running server, use render-web-services instead. For Blueprint authoring, see render-blueprints.

Static Site vs Web Service

Need	Use	Why
Pure HTML/CSS/JS, SPA, docs, blog	Static Site	Free, global CDN, instant cache invalidation
SSR (Next.js next start, Nuxt server)	Web Service	Needs a running Node/Python/etc. process
Static export from SSR framework	Static Site	If the framework supports full static export (next export, nuxt generate)
API backend	Web Service	Static sites cannot run server code

Key constraint: Static sites are not on the private network. They cannot communicate with other Render services over internal hostnames.

Build and Publish

Setting	Purpose
buildCommand	Installs dependencies and builds assets (e.g. npm ci && npm run build)
staticPublishPath	Directory of built output to serve (e.g. build, dist, public)

Render auto-detects and installs dependencies. Set SKIP_INSTALL_DEPS=true to handle installation yourself in the build command.

Common frameworks

Framework	Build command	Publish path
Create React App	npm ci && npm run build	build
Vite (React/Vue/Svelte)	npm ci && npm run build	dist
Next.js (static export)	npm ci && next build	out
Nuxt (static)	npm ci && nuxt generate	.output/public
Hugo	hugo --minify	public
Gatsby	npm ci && gatsby build	public
Docusaurus	npm ci && npm run build	build
Jekyll	bundle exec jekyll build	_site
Astro	npm ci && astro build	dist

SPA Routing and Redirects

Single-page apps need a catch-all rule so the CDN serves index.html for all routes instead of returning 404.

Configure Redirect/Rewrite Rules in the Dashboard (Settings > Redirects/Rewrites) or via the Blueprint routes field:

routes:
  - type: rewrite
    source: /*
    destination: /index.html

For multi-path redirects (e.g. old blog URLs), add specific rules above the catch-all so they take priority.

See references/routing-and-headers.md for redirect types, header rules, and caching patterns.

Custom Response Headers

Add security and performance headers from the Dashboard (Settings > Headers) or the Blueprint headers field:

headers:
  - path: /*
    name: X-Frame-Options
    value: DENY
  - path: /assets/*
    name: Cache-Control
    value: public, max-age=31536000, immutable

PR Previews

Static sites support automatic PR previews—each pull request gets a unique URL with the built site.

• Enable in Dashboard: Settings > PR Previews
• Blueprint: set previews.generation to automatic or manual
• Preview URLs follow the pattern <service>-<pr-id>.onrender.com

Blueprint Configuration

services:
  - type: web
    runtime: static
    name: my-frontend
    buildCommand: npm ci && npm run build
    staticPublishPath: dist
    routes:
      - type: rewrite
        source: /*
        destination: /index.html
    headers:
      - path: /*
        name: X-Frame-Options
        value: DENY
    previews:
      generation: automatic

Note: Static sites use type: web with runtime: static in Blueprints. There is no separate type: static.

CDN and Performance

• Global CDN with edge caching worldwide
• Brotli compression (better than gzip)
• HTTP/2 by default
• Immediate cache invalidation on every deploy (zero-downtime, atomic deploys)
• DDoS protection included free

Billing

Static sites have a free tier. They count against workspace-level monthly included amounts for:

• Outbound bandwidth (data served to users)
• Pipeline minutes (build time)

References

Document	Contents
references/routing-and-headers.md	Redirect types, rewrite rules, header patterns, SPA config
references/framework-configs.md	Build commands and publish paths for 10+ frameworks

Related Skills

• render-web-services — For SSR frameworks that need a running server
• render-blueprints — Full render.yaml schema for static site fields
• render-domains — Custom domain and TLS setup
• render-deploy — Deploy flows, CLI, MCP operations