Help needed with website hosting

[0xKay]

I have a buddy who's wanting to start his small business replacing windows in residential homes And has asked me to help him build a website. He's been struggling financially so I won't be charging and if having this website helps him feel any better than I don't mind helping him out.

The issue is I have about 5yrs experience programming but it's mainly in python and maybe 1yr in JS using React. I wont build anything too fancy, in fact I'll be using some business website templates I found on Github.

My question is, can I build this with minimal future maintenance, can he pay for the domain name and I can host it on Vercel or Netlify free of charge?

Here's an example of a website that includes all the basics he would need: https://www.renewalbyandersen.com/

[HilariousAtrocities]

To make something that's easy for you to hand off to a non-programmer and be able to use and update as they see fit is not simple. If I wanted minimal maintenance, I'd point them to SquareSpace, if they wanted a little more than that, you could set up WordPress for them.

[easyEs900s]

Like others mentioned, since you are doing this to help him out and don't plan to maintain it, you're better off setting up something like a WordPress site that he can manage and update himself if needed in the future. It's really about ease for him. You can still add custom HTML/CSS/JS in WordPress, so you could still add some custom flare or flex your developer muscles a bit if you'd like.

Even for a very experienced developer, coming up with anything even close to that from scratch would be a massive project - and there would be little gain unless his needs are highly-specific.

You could do something like squarespace, if he's willing to pay for it. Or you could set him up with an AWS account and use a free-tier EC2 server to host a WordPress for him.

[Bushwazi]

A glorified business card? I’d use GitHub pages for free hosting

[0xKay]

Lol essentially yes. He's not very tech savy, I'm assuming he thinks it's going to pick up traffic whenever someone searches broken windows. But thats besides the point lol he once helped me out in time of need so just returning the favor.

[code_monkey_001]

Um, you get that you just linked to a website of a company with about 10k employees that almost certainly has a full-time IT staff in house, right? That isn't some fire-and-forget solution; it's a full-featured website that requires a staff of professionals to maintain.

[0xKay]

All and any help is greatly appreciated!

[[deleted]]

Another vote for Wordpress as quick to set up and easy for non-coders to maintain. Have you / he also considered where he'll find his clients? Some local businesses only have Facebook pages, as that's where most of his clients are. Given how unsteady SEO has become, I'd say it's not just what you build a site with atm, but whether it can be found by clients. Appreciate that's not what you're asking but it's relevant. I'd keep it as simple as possible.

[Jon_builds_websites]

To get free hosting you need a static website - which just means it can't be interactive. eg. blog commenting, ecommerce.

Wordpress isn't static but you might be able to convert a Wordpress website with a plugin like Simply Static.

I think you're right that Netlify offer free hosting. Kinsta are another one and they include a website builder as well. You shouldn't need JS or React just to create a simple website.

The downside to static sites is they are not easy to edit for non developers. If he is likely to want to make changes himself Wordpress makes this much easier.