Launch Your Website with Just S3: No Servers, No Hassle

🌐 Introduction: Hosting a Static Website on AWS S3

As web developers and digital creators increasingly seek simple, cost-effective ways to deploy websites, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) has become a popular solution — especially for static websites. Unlike dynamic sites that rely on server-side scripting (like PHP or Node.js), static websites are made up of fixed content: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and media files. These types of websites are ideal for portfolios, resumes, documentation, landing pages, and small business sites.

🚀 Why Use AWS S3 for Static Website Hosting?

Amazon S3 offers a secure, highly scalable, and durable object storage service. With its static website hosting feature, you can upload your website files to an S3 bucket and serve them directly over the internet — without needing a web server like Apache or Nginx.

Best of all, S3 is part of the AWS Free Tier, which allows you to host small sites for free — perfect for developers, students, or startups with limited budgets.

🔒 Key Benefits:

• Free Hosting (within AWS Free Tier limits)

• No server maintenance

• Fast and globally available

• Scalable and reliable

• Easily integrates with custom domains and HTTPS (via CloudFront)

🧰 What You’ll Need:

• An AWS account (either free-tier or paid)

• A static website (e.g., index.html, CSS/JS/image files)

• Internet access and a modern browser

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📘 What This Guide Covers:

This guide provides a step-by-step walkthrough to help you deploy your static website on AWS S3 — from bucket creation to making your site publicly accessible.

Now, let’s get started!

✅ Step 1: Log In to the AWS Management Console

1. Open your browser and go to https://aws.amazon.com.

2. Click Sign in to your IAM user account and enter your credentials.

3. From the Services menu, choose S3 under "Storage".

✅ Step 2: Create an S3 Bucket

1. Click “Create bucket”.

2. Bucket name: Enter a unique, lowercase name (e.g., my-portfolio-site-001).

3. AWS Region: Choose a region close to your users.

4. Uncheck “Block all public access” under Permissions:

   • Acknowledge the warning checkbox.

5. Leave other settings as default.

6. Click Create bucket.

Note: You’ll notice that the bucket name I used is dami-testbucket, while in some of the other images it appears as damirex-bucket. Don’t worry — the steps and process remain the same regardless of the bucket name.

✅ Step 3: Upload Your Website Files

1. Click on your newly created bucket.

2. Go to the Objects tab and click “Upload”.

3. Drag-and-drop your files (index.html, styles.css, etc.) or use the file picker.

4. Click Upload.

💡 You can organize files into folders (like assets/, images/) if your site structure depends on it.

✅ Step 4: Enable Static Website Hosting

1. Inside the bucket, go to the Properties tab.

2. Scroll to Static website hosting and click Edit.

3. Choose “Enable”.

4. Under Index document, type index.html.

5. (Optional) Under Error document, type error.html if available.

6. Click Save changes.

📎 Note: You'll now see a Website endpoint URL — save this for later testing (e.g., http://my-portfolio-site-001.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com).

✅ Step 5: Make Your Website Files Public

By default, S3 buckets block public access. You must add a bucket policy to allow the public to view your site.

✏️ Add a Public Read Policy:

1. Go to the Permissions tab.

2. Scroll to Bucket policy and click Edit.

3. Click on “Policy Generator” at the top right of your screen.

4. Fill in the fields:

   • Choose the “S3 Bucket Policy”.

   • Effect: Choose Allow or Deny.

   • Put in a * (asterisk) to separate multiple values.

   • Actions: Choose the actions (e.g., GetObject).

   • Amazon Resource Name (ARN):

     • For S3, use the format:
       arn:aws:s3:::your-bucket-name/*

     • Example: arn:aws:s3:::my-static-site-bucket/*

     • Click on “add statement” before generating the final policy.

     • After adding all required statements, click the red “Generate Policy” button.

     • A JSON policy will appear in the text box below.

     • Select and copy the JSON code.

Note: You’ll notice that the bucket name I used is dami-testbucket, while in some of the other images it appears as damirex-bucket. Don’t worry — the steps and process remain the same regardless of the bucket name.

✅ Step 6: Test Your Static Website

• Go back to the Properties tab.

• Scroll to the Static website hosting section.

• Click on the Website endpoint URL.

Your site should now be live and publicly accessible! 🎉

✅ Conclusion

Hosting a static website on Amazon S3 is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to get your content online — especially when leveraging the AWS Free Tier. Whether you're a student, developer, or business owner, this method removes the need to manage web servers, databases, or backend code for simple sites.

By following this guide, you’ve learned how to:

• Set up an S3 bucket

• Upload and organize website files

• Enable static website hosting

• Make your content publicly accessible

• Access your site via the S3 endpoint

This process is highly scalable and reliable, allowing you to expand your website's reach globally with minimal effort. Plus, S3 seamlessly integrates with other AWS services like CloudFront (for CDN and HTTPS) and Route 53 (for custom domain management) — giving you the flexibility to grow your site in the future.

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💡 What Next?

To enhance your static website further, consider:

• 🌐 Connecting a custom domain via Route 53 or another domain registrar

• 🔐 Securing your site with HTTPS using Amazon CloudFront and SSL certificates

• 📈 Enabling analytics and monitoring with AWS CloudWatch

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🙌 Final Thoughts

With the right tools and a clear understanding, hosting on AWS S3 becomes not just easy — but empowering. Now that your static site is live, you can focus more on building great content and less on server maintenance.

If you're looking for more advanced AWS tutorials, or want to deploy a dynamic site next, keep exploring — the cloud is full of opportunities.

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