Arunangshu Das

Posted on Apr 9

5 Steps to Host a Fast Static Website on AWS

#webdev #explainlikeimfive #discuss #aws

Let’s be real for a second— if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, you’re already losing people. Whether you’re launching a portfolio, a product landing page, or a documentation site, speed matters. And what better way to host a blazing-fast, budget-friendly website than with AWS?

What is a Static Website?

Let’s get the basics out of the way.

A static website means all your content—HTML, CSS, JS, and assets—is prebuilt and doesn’t require a backend or server-side rendering.

Think:

Portfolios
Blogs (built with Hugo, Jekyll, or Astro)
Landing pages
Documentation (like with Docusaurus)

Static = fast. And AWS = scalable. Together?

What You’ll Need Before We Start

Here’s a quick checklist:

An AWS account (free tier is great for most use cases)
A domain name (you can buy one via Route 53 or elsewhere)
Your static website files (built with React, Vue, Astro, etc.)
Basic familiarity with AWS Console or CLI

Step 1: Upload Your Website to Amazon S3

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is where your website will live.

Create a Bucket

Log into AWS Console → Go to S3
Click “Create Bucket”
Set your Bucket name (should match your domain name, e.g. myawesomewebsite.com)
Choose a region close to your audience (e.g. us-east-1)
Uncheck “Block all public access” (you’ll make it publicly accessible)
Leave the rest as default and click “Create bucket”

Upload Your Files

Click into your new bucket
Upload your build folder (usually dist/, build/, or public/)
Make sure your index.html and error.html are in the root

Enable Static Website Hosting

Go to the Properties tab of your bucket
Scroll down to Static Website Hosting
Click “Edit”
Enable hosting and set: - Index document: index.html - Error document: error.html (optional but recommended)
Save changes

You’ll get a URL like:
http://myawesomewebsite.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com

This is live now, but wait—we’re not done yet.

Set Permissions for Public Access

Go to Permissions → Bucket Policy and paste this JSON:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": "*",
      "Action": "s3:GetObject",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::myawesomewebsite.com/*"
    }
  ]
}

Replace myawesomewebsite.com with your bucket name.

Step 2: Distribute Content with Amazon CloudFront

So your site is live… but it’s not fast globally. Enter CloudFront.

CloudFront is AWS’s CDN (Content Delivery Network). It caches your content on servers around the world, so users in Tokyo don’t have to fetch files from Virginia.

Create a CloudFront Distribution

Go to CloudFront → Create Distribution
Under Origin domain, select your S3 bucket endpoint
Under Viewer protocol policy, choose “Redirect HTTP to HTTPS”
In Default root object, enter index.html
Enable compression (improves load times)
Click “Create distribution”

It may take a few minutes to deploy.

When done, you’ll get a CloudFront URL like:
https://d1234abcde.cloudfront.net

Optional (but smart): Custom Error Pages

You can configure custom error responses like 404 pages. Go to your CloudFront distribution → Error Pages → Create Custom Error Response.

Set it to use /error.html with a response code of 200.

Step 3: Connect a Custom Domain with Route 53 (or Others)

We all want clean URLs like myawesomewebsite.com—not weird CloudFront URLs.

Let’s hook it up.

Option 1: Using Route 53

Go to Route 53 → Hosted Zones → Create hosted zone
Enter your domain name and create the zone
Route 53 gives you NS (Name Server) records—go update your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.) to use these

Now, create a record:

Type: A – IPv4 address
Alias: Yes
Alias Target: your CloudFront distribution
Routing policy: Simple
Record name: leave empty for apex (myawesomewebsite.com) or use www

Repeat for both root and www if needed.

Option 2: Using External DNS Providers

If you’re not using Route 53:

Go to your DNS settings
Create a CNAME record: - Name: www or blank - Value: CloudFront domain (e.g., d1234abcde.cloudfront.net)

Step 4: Secure with HTTPS using AWS Certificate Manager (ACM)

No one trusts a site that says “Not Secure.”

Let’s get that lock.

Request a Certificate

Go to AWS Certificate Manager
Click “Request a certificate”
Choose “Public certificate”
Add both myawesomewebsite.com and www.myawesomewebsite.com
Use DNS validation (easier with Route 53)

AWS gives you DNS records to add. Once validated, you’re good to go.

Attach Certificate to CloudFront

Go back to your CloudFront Distribution → Edit

Under Custom SSL Certificate, choose your domain's certificate
Save and deploy

Boom—your site is now secure.

Step 5: Speed It Up Like a Pro (Performance Optimization)

Even though static sites are fast by default, we can make it ultra fast.

Enable Brotli + Gzip Compression

AWS CloudFront handles this automatically—just make sure “Compress Objects Automatically” is turned on.

Set Proper Caching Headers

In S3 → set metadata for files like:

Cache-Control: max-age=31536000, public

This ensures static files (CSS/JS/images) are cached for up to a year.

But don’t set this on HTML files unless you want users to never get updates.

Bundle + Minify Your Assets

Make sure your site is built using a bundler like:

Vite
Webpack
Parcel

This will ensure:

Smaller JS/CSS files
Tree shaking
Faster time-to-first-paint (TTFP)

Use Lazy Loading + Image Optimization

Lazy load images and defer scripts to improve load time. Use modern formats like WebP for images.

Final Checklist

Feature	Status
S3 Bucket Live	✅
Static Hosting Enabled	✅
CloudFront CDN	✅
Custom Domain	✅
HTTPS Enabled	✅
Cache & Compression	✅

Real-World Use Cases

If you’re wondering if this is worth it—it absolutely is. Here’s where AWS-hosted static sites shine:

Personal Portfolio

You want your resume and projects to load quickly. No server. No delay. Just boom—open and done.

Documentation Sites

Using tools like Docusaurus or MkDocs? You can deploy them to S3 + CloudFront with minimal cost.

SaaS Landing Pages

First impressions matter. You don’t want your product page to lag. This setup gives you global speed and 99.999999999% uptime.

Product Launch Sites

Expecting traffic from Product Hunt or Reddit? You can scale from 10 visitors to 10 million without blinking.

Bonus: Automate with GitHub Actions

Want to push your site to AWS every time you commit? Use CI/CD with GitHub Actions and AWS CLI.

Here’s a tiny example:

name: Deploy to S3
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - run: npm install && npm run build
      - uses: jakejarvis/s3-sync-action@master
        with:
          args: --acl public-read --delete
        env:
          AWS_S3_BUCKET: ${{ secrets.S3_BUCKET }}
          AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          SOURCE_DIR: './dist'

This way, you update your site by pushing to GitHub—zero manual steps.

Wrapping It Up

Hosting a static website on AWS may sound intimidating at first, but it’s honestly one of the best developer moves you can make.

It’s:

Fast
Cheap
Scalable
Secure

In just 5 steps, you’ve gone from folder of files to a global, HTTPS-enabled site—served in milliseconds from edge locations around the planet.

TL;DR (Too Long, Didn’t Read)

5 Steps to Host a Static Website on AWS:

Upload your website files to an S3 bucket and enable static hosting
Use CloudFront for CDN and performance boost
Set up a custom domain with Route 53 (or your DNS provider)
Get an SSL certificate from ACM for HTTPS
Optimize caching, compression, and delivery for lightning-fast speeds

If this helped, share it with a friend or dev who's about to deploy their next project. Or better—tweet it, blog it, build it.

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