A Surge alternative

Surge made "one command, one folder, one URL" the way to publish a static site, and Lobsite keeps that: npx lobsite in a built project prints a live address. What changes is what happens around the command. There's no account to make before the first deploy, only the files that changed upload, there's a dashboard with drag and drop, and forms work without a backend.

How it works

1. Run npx lobsite where you'd run surge. The folder is found for you (dist/, build/, out/, _site/ or public/) and saved in lobsite.toml.
2. Get the URL. The first deploy makes a site at a random *.lobsite.app address, live for 6 hours, with no sign-up.
3. Keep it with npx lobsite login (or the claim link). From then on the same command updates the same site.

Moving a Surge project

• The folder. Surge asks for the project path each time unless you pass it; Lobsite saves it in lobsite.toml as dir, so the next run asks nothing.
• The domain. Surge keeps the domain in a CNAME file. Lobsite sites get a *.lobsite.app address; custom domains come with the paid plan, which is coming soon. If your Surge site uses its own domain, keep it on Surge until then.
• 200.html and 404.html work the same: 200.html is the single-page-app fallback, 404.html your not-found page. Clean URLs work too: /about serves about.html.
• ROUTER redirects become [[redirects]] in lobsite.toml, with :param segments and the status you choose. The Redirect Generator turns a list of old and new paths into the rules.
• .surgeignore becomes .lobsiteignore, with the same syntax as .gitignore.
• surge --preview becomes npx lobsite deploy --preview, and rollback stays npx lobsite rollback.

What's different

• Only changed files upload. Files are stored by their hash, so redeploying after a one-line change uploads one file, and redeploying an unchanged site uploads 0 bytes. (A diff-only upload is one of Surge's longest-open requests.)
• Errors say what to do. A refused file or a failed deploy says what happened, why, and the fix, with a code that never changes. Nothing is blocked silently.
• Forms. Point a form at /_lobsite/forms/contact and messages reach your inbox and email, spam filtered. See forms.
• Redirects and headers on the free plan, in lobsite.toml, versioned with each deploy, so a rollback restores them.
• A dashboard, with drag and drop of a folder or a zip, deploy history and one-click rollback.
• Every limit is published: files, sizes, bandwidth and deploys an hour, on the limits table.

Surge and Lobsite, side by side

As of October 2026, from surge.sh/pricing and Lobsite's own limits:

Surge's free plan is more generous with sites and domains. Lobsite is the better fit if you want to deploy without signing up first, redeploy faster, and have forms and redirects without paying.

Frequently asked questions

Is Lobsite a drop-in replacement for the surge command?

Close to it: npx lobsite deploys the built folder the way surge does. The command names differ (deploy --preview, rollback, ls, rm), and configuration lives in lobsite.toml instead of CNAME and ROUTER files.

Can I keep my custom domain if I move?

Custom domains come with Lobsite's paid plan, which is coming soon. Until then, a site lives at its *.lobsite.app address, so a Surge site with its own domain is best moved once the paid plan launches.

Does Lobsite support single-page apps like Surge's 200.html?

Yes. A 200.html at the top of the site answers every path that isn't a file, with status 200, so client-side routing works.

How much does Lobsite cost?

The free plan is free: one site, 10 GB of bandwidth a month, forms with 25 submissions a month. The paid plan is coming soon; its price is on the pricing page.

Can I deploy from CI like with a Surge token?

Not yet: CI tokens come with the paid plan, which is coming soon. Today the CLI deploys from a logged-in machine, or without an account for 6 hours.