The local mock-up

Where does a website made with Claude live?

MR
Micaella Rogers2:26 AM
Very basic question incoming: When folks use Claude to create a website, where/how is it hosted? Is it directly accessing your (eg) Wix account or is it its own separate thing?

It's its own separate thing. Claude never touches your Wix. It writes the site as a folder of files, and a host puts that folder on the internet, often for free, in seconds.

This page is the proof: the same file lives on several hosts, each in its own colours.

Not inside your Wix.

Builders like Wix keep your site inside their own editor. Claude works differently: it writes the website as files on your computer.

Every website is HTML.

Plain text that says "heading here, photo there". Claude writes it; you just describe what you want, typed or spoken.

First, a private mock-up.

You look at it on your own computer, ask for changes, look again. Nobody else can see it yet.

Then it goes to a host.

A host is a company whose computers are always on and show your page to anyone. One command from Claude, and you get a web address.

The hosts, in a line each.

Vercel: a web host popular with developers. Free for personal sites.

Netlify: the same idea; you can even drag a folder onto its page.

Cloudflare Pages: free hosting from the company behind much of the internet's plumbing.

DigitalOcean and Hetzner: rent you a whole always-on computer, from about $4–5 a month.

Optional: your own name.

Buy a name like sunnypaws.org and point it at your host with two settings. Claude can do that part too.

Free to start. Pay once it matters.

Free hosts are fine to start. For anything professional, I'd pay for a server; it isn't expensive, about $4 a month is enough for many people.

Website builder its own editor, its own computers Claude your computer · my-website/ index.html style.css photo.jpg index.html what the browser draws Sunny Paws RescueAdoption weekend · Saturday · Riverside Park Adopt a friend only this computer can see it “Add a photo, and afriendlier button.” this page settings at the place you bought the name CNAME www → A @ → 75.2.60.5 connected; the padlock (https) is added for you to try thingsA free hostVercel · Netlify · Cloudflare Pages · GitHub Pages — $0 once it mattersA paid plan or a rented serverfrom about $4 a month · enough for many people to edit by handA site builderCarrd · Wix · Squarespace — Claude writes the words, you paste

So: separate, cheap, and fast.

One HTML file, made by talking to Claude, checked as a mock-up, then copied to each host below. Same page, different colours; try them.

Another real one: a little speech-translator page made and put live on Cloudflare in about a minute, sunbird-transcribe.pages.dev.

Upload times were measured on 11 November 2026 from the upload command starting to the page answering on the internet; signing up for each service the first time takes a few extra minutes. Made with Claude Code.