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Free website hosting for students, Flask apps included

Free web hosting for students. Run a Flask app online, or publish an HTML, PHP or Node site at a public HTTPS address, from a free coding classroom.

CS Room is a free online coding classroom from a nonprofit. Every student gets their own workspace in the browser, with an editor, a Linux terminal and files that persist, and teachers get classes, autograding and a gradebook. There's nothing to install.

It also gives your class free website hosting for students: each student builds a site or Flask app in their workspace and publishes it at a public HTTPS address anyone can open, with no hosting account to set up.

Where the site runs

The site runs in the same workspace where the student wrote it, so there's no separate deploy step. A student starts the server, and within a second a notice gives its public address.

Run a Flask app online, or any web server

  • Flask, Node and PHP 8 servers, or a plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript site served with python -m http.server.
  • An HTTPS address per site, such as https://quiet-sunny-harbor.app.csroom.org, which the student can rename, with up to twenty per student.
  • A private Preview tab for HTML and PHP pages that reloads as files change.
  • SQLite for sites that store data, in files that persist.
  • Sites that stay up after the student closes the tab, while the server runs.
  • Starter code, autograding against your tests, a gradebook, and live editing in any student's workspace.

Publish your class's websites

  1. Request a teacher account. We set teachers up within a day or two.
  2. Create a class, share its class link, and publish a project, or import the Personal Website lesson, a Flask portfolio built over 7–8 class periods.
  3. Students start their server the way the tutorial says, on localhost or any port, and its address appears.
  4. Students share the address with anyone.

Running a web app covers ports, frameworks and troubleshooting.

Before you start

A site is live only while its server runs. If the workspace restarts, for example when a student joins another class, the student starts the server again. Addresses end in csroom.org, with no custom domains.

Request a free teacher account to start a class.