What it costs, and who can run it
It’s cheap because nothing runs
A static site is just files. There’s no database, no app server, no per-request compute — so hosting is close to free and there’s almost nothing to maintain or secure.
Rough monthly cost for a small library site like this one:
| Item | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Domain name | ~$1/mo (billed ~$12/yr) |
| Object storage (S3) for a few hundred MB | a few cents |
| CDN (CloudFront) egress at low traffic | often within the free tier; cents beyond |
| Build/deploy (GitHub Actions) | free for public repos |
| Total | ~$1–3/month |
Compare that to a hosted ILS or a CMS on an always-on server (databases, backups,
upgrades, security patching). You can also host the exact same public/ folder for $0
on GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, or Netlify.
Because it’s static, it’s also fast and resilient: pages are pre-rendered and cached at the edge, and there’s no server to fall over under load.
You don’t need to be a developer to edit it
Day-to-day edits are just Markdown — the same simple formatting used across the web:
## New Saturday hours
Starting in June we're open until **6pm** on Saturdays.
See the [events page](/events/) for details.
To add an event, you copy a file into content/events/, change the title and date, and
save. To publish, you need only a handful of Git commands — the same three every time:
git add .
git commit -m "Add June hours notice"
git push
That push triggers the automated build and deploy. That’s the whole skill set: edit
Markdown, run three commands. Many library staff already have this, and it’s very
teachable.
Prefer not to touch Git? Use a CMS.
For staff who’d rather not use the command line, a git-based CMS gives a friendly editing screen in the browser while still saving to the same repository — so you keep the cheap, static, no-lock-in setup.
This demo includes a Sveltia CMS admin at
/admin/. It presents forms for events and pages; when connected to the
repository (via a GitHub login), Save writes the Markdown and commits it for you — no
Git knowledge required.
The
/admin/here is a scaffold: the editing UI loads and shows the collections, but writing needs a one-time OAuth backend setup for the repo. It’s here to show the option, not to accept edits to this demo.
The takeaway
A credible library website — pages, events, and a searchable catalog — can be built and run by one person, for a dollar or two a month, edited in Markdown or a simple CMS. That’s the case this whole demo is making.
Back to all guides, or see it live: the catalog and events.