GitHub Pages vs Google Sites

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

GitHub Pages

17.4K
12.7K
+ 1
1.1K
Google Sites

38
57
+ 1
6
Add tool

GitHub Pages vs Google Sites: What are the differences?

GitHub Pages and Google Sites are both website hosting platforms that allow users to create and publish websites. While they share similarities in terms of providing website hosting services, there are several key differences between the two platforms.

  1. Customizability: GitHub Pages offers more customization options compared to Google Sites. With GitHub Pages, users have full control over the website's design and structure, allowing them to create a unique and personalized website. On the other hand, Google Sites has limited customization options, making it more suitable for simple and basic websites.

  2. Version Control: One major advantage of GitHub Pages is its integration with Git version control system. Users can easily track changes made to their website, collaborate with others, and revert to previous versions if needed. Google Sites, on the other hand, does not provide built-in version control, making it less suitable for projects that require frequent updates and collaboration.

  3. Development Skills: GitHub Pages is better suited for users with coding and development skills. It allows users to create websites using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, giving them the freedom to design and build their website from scratch. Google Sites, on the other hand, is more beginner-friendly and does not require programming skills. It provides a simple drag-and-drop interface for users to create and edit websites.

  4. Domain Options: GitHub Pages offers more flexibility when it comes to domain options. Users can choose to host their website under a custom domain or a subdomain, allowing for a more professional and branded website. Google Sites, on the other hand, only provides a subdomain under the sites.google.com domain, which may not be ideal for businesses or individuals looking for a more personalized domain.

  5. Deployment Process: GitHub Pages requires users to manually deploy their website by pushing their code to a specific repository. This process may require some technical knowledge and can be more time-consuming. On the other hand, Google Sites provides a simpler and more streamlined deployment process, where users can instantly publish their website with just a few clicks.

  6. Collaboration Features: GitHub Pages excels in collaboration features, as it allows multiple contributors to work on the same project simultaneously. It provides a platform for developers to collaborate, review code, and contribute to the website's development. Google Sites, on the other hand, is more focused on individual website creation and lacks advanced collaboration features.

In Summary, GitHub Pages offers more customization and flexibility, integrates with Git version control, requires coding skills, provides more domain options, requires manual deployment, and excels in collaboration features. Google Sites, on the other hand, is more user-friendly, offers simpler deployment, and is more suitable for basic website creation.

Decisions about GitHub Pages and Google Sites
Howie Zhao
Full Stack Engineer at yintrust · | 7 upvotes · 216.6K views

We use Netlify to host static websites.

The reasons for choosing Netlify over GitHub Pages are as follows:

  • Netfily can bind multiple domain names, while GitHub Pages can only bind one domain name
  • With Netfily, the original repository can be private, while GitHub Pages free tier requires the original repository to be public

In addition, in order to use CDN, we use Netlify DNS.

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of GitHub Pages
Pros of Google Sites
  • 290
    Free
  • 217
    Right out of github
  • 185
    Quick to set up
  • 108
    Instant
  • 107
    Easy to learn
  • 58
    Great way of setting up your project's website
  • 47
    Widely used
  • 41
    Quick and easy
  • 37
    Great documentation
  • 4
    Super easy
  • 3
    Easy setup
  • 2
    Instant and fast Jekyll builds
  • 2
    Great customer support
  • 2
    Great integration
  • 1
    Works in Schools
  • 1
    Official Google Product
  • 1
    Free Partially Custom Domain
  • 1
    Easy Embedding of Websites
  • 1
    Free and Easy to Use
  • 1
    Seamless Google Drive Integration

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of GitHub Pages
Cons of Google Sites
  • 4
    Not possible to perform HTTP redirects
  • 3
    Supports only Jekyll
  • 3
    Limited Jekyll plugins
  • 1
    Jekyll is bloated
    Be the first to leave a con

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    What is GitHub Pages?

    Public webpages hosted directly from your GitHub repository. Just edit, push, and your changes are live.

    What is Google Sites?

    It is a free and easy way to create and share webpages. Its goal is for anyone to be able to create simple web sites that support collaboration between different editors.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use GitHub Pages?
    What companies use Google Sites?
    See which teams inside your own company are using GitHub Pages or Google Sites.
    Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

    Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

    What tools integrate with GitHub Pages?
    What tools integrate with Google Sites?

    Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

    Blog Posts

    What are some alternatives to GitHub Pages and Google Sites?
    Netlify
    Netlify is smart enough to process your site and make sure all assets gets optimized and served with perfect caching-headers from a cookie-less domain. We make sure your HTML is served straight from our CDN edge nodes without any round-trip to our backend servers and are the only ones to give you instant cache invalidation when you push a new deploy. Netlify is also the only static hosting service with integrated continuous deployment.
    GitLab Pages
    Host your static websites on GitLab.com for free, or on your own GitLab Enterprise Edition instance. Use any static website generator: Jekyll, Middleman, Hexo, Hugo, Pelican, and more
    Amazon S3
    Amazon Simple Storage Service provides a fully redundant data storage infrastructure for storing and retrieving any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web
    Medium
    Medium is a different kind of place on the internet. A place where the measure of success isn’t views, but viewpoints. Where the quality of the idea matters, not the author’s qualifications. A place where conversation pushes ideas forward.
    WordPress
    The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home” — we’d love you to join the family.
    See all alternatives