Glitch Shut Down: Where to Build and Host Small Web Apps in 2026

Glitch ended project hosting on July 8, 2025, so the remixable demos, bots and small apps that lived on glitch.me are offline. In 2026 nothing replaces all of Glitch at once. Use a browser editor (StackBlitz, CodeSandbox or Replit) to try and share code, and a host (GitHub Pages, Netlify or Cloudflare for static sites, Render, Fly.io or Deno Deploy for a small server, Val Town or Cloudflare Workers for scripts) to keep the app online.

This page replaces the Glitch project links that tutorials and blog posts still point to. Glitch's dates come from its own blog. Free tiers and prices come from each vendor's pricing page and were checked on October 17, 2026.

Disclosure: App369 is my studio, and app369.com is hosted on Netlify, which appears below. No vendor on this page paid for a mention.

What happened to Glitch, and when

Glitch gave two reasons: the cost of running free hosting, and people misusing the platform. It also pointed out that many newer platforms now do what Glitch pioneered, naming Fly.io, Deno, GitHub Pages, Val Town, Netlify and DigitalOcean among those "still inspiring us".

What the old addresses do today

Checked on October 17, 2026:

• glitch.com, editor links (glitch.com/edit/#!/...) and project pages (glitch.com/~project) all redirect to the Glitch blog.
• A project's glitch.me address returned 410 Gone in my test. Owners who set up a redirect in time may still have one working.
• help.glitch.com and support.glitch.com, where the export guides and forum lived, no longer resolve. The Wayback Machine has partial copies.

If a tutorial you're following says "remix this project on Glitch", the code is usually gone unless the author also put it on GitHub. Check the post for a repo link before you rebuild it from scratch.

Where to build and host in 2026

Glitch did two jobs: an editor where you could open, remix and edit an app in the browser, and a host that kept it online at a public URL. In 2026 these are usually separate products.

Hosts: keeping an app online

Editors: trying, remixing and sharing code

How to choose

1. It was a static page (HTML, CSS, a bit of JavaScript). Put the files in a GitHub repo and turn on GitHub Pages, or drag the folder onto Netlify. Both are free and neither sleeps.
2. It was an Express app that people only visit now and then. Render's free web service is the closest match. Accept the one-minute wake-up, or pay $7 a month for Starter to keep it awake.
3. It must answer instantly, every time (a bot, a webhook receiver, a payment callback). Don't use a host that sleeps. Fly.io from $2.19 a month, Render Starter, or Cloudflare Workers if your code fits its runtime.
4. It was a small script, bot or scheduled job. Val Town or Cloudflare Workers. Both give you a URL without managing a server.
5. You mainly need runnable examples for a tutorial or a class. StackBlitz or CodeSandbox, with the code in a public GitHub repo so the example survives the next shutdown.
6. It quietly became a product people pay for or depend on. Move it to a paid plan with backups, a custom domain you own, and logs you can read. Free tiers change, and Glitch is the proof.

Moving an old Glitch project

1. Find the code. Your own download from the Glitch dashboard, a linked GitHub repo, or your local copy. For static files only, the Wayback Machine may have the last published version.
2. Put it in a Git repo. Most hosts above can deploy from GitHub. Commit package.json and the lockfile, and remove node_modules.
3. Move secrets out of .env. Glitch kept them in a private .env file that only invited collaborators could see. Add each value in the new host's environment-variable settings, and rotate any key that was ever visible in a public project.
4. Check the port and start command. Glitch starter apps usually read the port from process.env.PORT. Keep that, and check the host's docs for which port it expects (Render defaults to 10000). Confirm the start command (npm start) and the Node version in package.json.
5. Replace the database file. Glitch told people to keep data files in a .data/ folder, so check there for a database or JSON file. On Render's free plan the file system is ephemeral: changes are lost on redeploy, restart or spin-down, and free services can't use a persistent disk. Serverless hosts generally don't keep local files either. Move the data to a managed database or a paid host with a persistent disk.
6. Point your domain. If you used a custom domain, update its DNS. If people still have glitch.me links and you set a redirect, it works through at least the end of 2026, so share the new address before then.
7. Test the slow path. On a host that sleeps, load the app after 20 minutes of no traffic and check that it wakes cleanly.

Need a hand?

If your app moved but one thing broke on the way, such as a login that loops, a webhook that stopped firing or a build that fails, the App Fix Ticket is a fixed-price option. The Diagnosis is $450 in 3 business days and the Fix is $1,200 in 5 business days. It covers Node.js, React and Vue among others, and it doesn't cover rewrites. If the old demo needs to become a proper product, get in touch and I'll scope it.