Use WordPress as your editor and let Cloudflare serve the site for free
I was looking at a hosting bill the other day and had one of those “wait a minute…” moments.
I’m paying every month for a server to run PHP, a database, a pile of plugins, and a login page that bots poke at all day long. And what do most visitors actually get? The exact same page they got yesterday.
That’s a lot of machinery just to hand someone the same HTML file over and over. 😃
It turns out there’s a much simpler way to do it, and you don’t have to give up WordPress to get there.
Have you ever looked at what your website really needs to do versus what it’s paying to do?
Stop Paying Monthly Website Fees Forever 💰
The Basic Idea
You keep using WordPress to write pages, add images, and publish posts. Nothing changes there.
The difference is what happens after you click Publish. Instead of WordPress serving the public site, you export the whole thing as plain files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images) and let Cloudflare hand those out.
In other words:
WordPress = editing
GitHub = storing your files (with history)
Cloudflare = hosting
WordPress (you edit)
↓
Static Export (plain files)
↓
GitHub (stores the files)
↓
Cloudflare (serves them for free)
↓
yourdomain.com
Your visitors never know WordPress is involved. They just get a fast page.
“Static” Doesn’t Mean Boring
When people hear “static website” they picture something from 1997 with a visitor counter and a spinning GIF. 😊
Nope. A static site can still have animations, videos, menus, calculators, JavaScript tools, and calls to outside services.
“Static” just means the server isn’t building the page every time someone shows up. The page is already built. Cloudflare just hands it over.
Why Bother?
💰 Free hosting.
Cloudflare hosts static files without a monthly hosting bill. You still pay for your domain name, and maybe for wherever WordPress lives (more on that below), but the public website itself can cost you $0.
⚡ It’s FAST.
A normal WordPress page load goes: browser, server, PHP, WordPress, database, plugins, theme, and finally HTML. A static page goes: browser, Cloudflare, HTML. Done. And Cloudflare keeps copies of your files all over the world, so it’s quick no matter where your visitor is.
🔒 Way better security.
This one is HUGE. Nobody can hack a vulnerable WordPress plugin on your public site if WordPress isn’t running there. No /wp-admin, no login page, no database for bots to hammer.
⏪ An undo button for your whole site.
Because the files live on GitHub, every change is saved. Break something? Roll back to yesterday’s version. I wish my kitchen remodel worked that way.
So Where Does WordPress Live?
Good question. WordPress still has to run somewhere. You’ve got a few options:
- On your own PC. Tools like Local, XAMPP, or Docker run WordPress right on your computer. That can make the whole setup free. The catch: your PC has to be on when you want to edit.
- On cheap hosting. A small, inexpensive WordPress account works fine, because it only handles your editing. Your visitors never touch it.
- On WordPress.com. Possible, but what you can export depends on your plan. Self-hosted gives you more control.
The Catch ❗
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t for every site.
Anything that needs WordPress to “think” while a visitor is on the page gets tricky:
- WooCommerce and shopping carts
- Membership sites and user logins
- Forums
- WordPress’s built-in search
- Some contact form plugins
The good news? Most of these have outside services that work great on a static site. Stripe or PayPal for payments, a form service for contact forms, and so on.
If your site is mostly pages like Home, About, Services, Courses, FAQ, Blog, and Contact, you’re in the sweet spot.
The Really Interesting Option 🤖
Here’s where it gets fun.
Once you’ve got GitHub and Cloudflare publishing your site, you might realize you don’t even need WordPress. For a small site, AI can be your editor.
You say: “Add a testimonials section to my homepage.”
AI updates the HTML file. It goes to GitHub. Cloudflare publishes it. Done.
No plugins to update. No theme conflicts. No database. Just files and a conversation. For someone who already works with AI every day, that’s an incredibly simple way to run a website.
How I’d Start
Don’t move your real website on day one. Experiment first.
- Build a tiny test site (an index.html, an about.html, and a style.css).
- Put it on GitHub.
- Connect it to Cloudflare and point a test subdomain at it.
- Once that works, try exporting a WordPress site through the same pipeline.
One thing I’ve learned: once you understand the publishing pipeline, you can use it for almost any simple website. Not just WordPress sites.
How about you? Are you paying for hosting you don’t really need? 😊
P.S. Life is an experiment. The worst case here is you spend an afternoon and learn how websites really get delivered. The best case is you never pay for hosting again. That’s a pretty good trade.
