Share a website without setting up hosting

You have a website in a folder: an index.html with its styles, scripts and images, or the build your framework writes. You want someone to open it from a link. Zipping it up and emailing it means they unpack it and find the right file, and a page that loads its scripts from the site's root won't work from a folder on their computer.

Hosting it the usual way means an account, a repository, a build pipeline and maybe DNS, which is a lot for a preview. With ouicu, it's one command.

Install and log in

On macOS and Linux, install the command line tool with:

curl -fsSL https://ouicu.com/install.sh | sh

On Windows, run this in PowerShell:

irm https://ouicu.com/install.ps1 | iex

Then log in. It opens ouicu.com in your browser, where you approve this computer:

ouicu login

Upload the folder

For a site you wrote by hand, point ouicu at the folder with the index.html in it:

ouicu deploy ./my-site

For a framework, build first and upload what the build writes: dist for Vite and Astro, out for a Next.js static export, build for Create React App.

npm run buildouicu deploy ./dist

Uploaded 24 of 24 files   Live at https://calm-otter-4821.ouicu.app  24 files, 1.2 MB  It stays up until 2026-10-11, a week after this upload, on your plan.

Send the link. It opens on any device, and your computer can be off: ouicu serves the site. A QR code comes with the link, so you can check it on your phone first.

If the page loads without its styles

ouicu serves your site at the root of its link, so a page asks for /assets/app.css at https://calm-otter-4821.ouicu.app/assets/app.css. If you set your build to live in a subfolder, like /my-project/, its pages look for their files there and find nothing. Set the base path back to / (in Vite, base in vite.config), build again and upload.

How addresses find your pages

• / and /docs/ get their index.html.
• /about gets about.html, or about/index.html.
• Any other address gets your 404.html if the site has one, or a page from ouicu saying the page isn't on the site.

A single-page app, with its routing in the browser, wants index.html for every address. Add --spa:

ouicu deploy ./dist --spa

Update it at the same link

Each ouicu deploy without a name makes a new site with a new random name. To change a site, upload again with its name:

ouicu deploy ./dist --name calm-otter-4821

Visitors see the new version as soon as the upload finishes, and the old one until then. Only files ouicu doesn't have yet are sent, so it's quick. On Hobby and Pro, use a name of your own, like --name studiolund: it is reserved for you the first time, and stays yours.

Keep it private (Hobby and Pro)

ouicu deploy ./dist --password

Visitors need the password to open it. It holds until the next upload, so give each upload --password, or set a password on a reserved name to cover them all. Sites at ouicu.app addresses also ask search engines not to list them. See Password-protect a staging site.

What goes up, and for how long

The files a web page is made of: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, images, fonts, WebAssembly, text and XML. Videos, PDFs, archives and other files are left out, and the terminal lists them. So are dot files, apart from .well-known, and node_modules.

On every plan, a site holds up to 5,000 files of up to 50 MB each. When a Free site's 7 days are up, its link stops working; upload again to start over. To take a site down sooner, press Delete by it on the Shares page.

When the site is still changing

If you're still working on it, you don't have to upload after every change. Share your dev server instead, and the link shows each change as you save:

ouicu share 3000

A share works while your computer is on and the command runs. See how to share localhost with someone, and upload a build when it's ready for a proper look.