GitHub Gist alternative: share HTML as a live page with no sign-in

GitHub Gist vs BrewPage at a glance

Gist details below come from GitHub's documentation and from our own checks of public gists as of October 2026. Check the linked sources before you decide.

BrewPage pages are deleted within 30 days; if a link must stay up longer, see when Gist is the better choice.

Where BrewPage differs

Both turn content into a link in seconds. The differences are in what the reader sees, who can publish and how access is controlled.

• HTML opens as a page. GitHub serves raw gist files as plain text, so a reader who opens an HTML gist sees its markup, not the page. On BrewPage the same file opens as a working web page with its styles and scripts: right for a prototype, a chart or an AI-generated report. See publishing AI-generated HTML.
• No sign-in. Creating a gist requires being signed into GitHub. BrewPage has no accounts at all. The publish response includes an owner token, which is the key to update or delete the page; the editor keeps it in your browser.
• A password, not only an unlisted link. GitHub says plainly that secret gists aren't private: anyone with the URL can see them. An unlisted BrewPage address works the same way, so any publish can also carry a password of at least 4 characters, at no cost.
• Agents publish without credentials. The Gist REST API, gh gist create and the GitHub MCP server's gist tools all act for a signed-in GitHub account. BrewPage's REST API is free and needs no key: one curl request publishes a page. There is an OpenAPI spec and the brewpage-mcp server for MCP-compatible agents.
• Whole sites, not only files. Drop a folder or a .zip with up to 200 files and 20 MB in total; relative links between pages, stylesheets and images keep working.

For a plain Markdown note, either tool works: both render Markdown. BrewPage adds no sign-in and an optional password; see Markdown hosting.

When GitHub Gist is the better choice

BrewPage is built for showing a page to someone now. Gist is likely the better tool if one of these matters to you:

• The code is meant to be read, not run. Gist suits snippets that people should read, fork, comment on or embed. GitHub lets you embed a gist “in any text field that supports JavaScript, such as a blog post”.
• You want history and GitHub tooling. Every gist is a Git repository, so you keep its full history, and gh gist and the GitHub MCP server work with it under your GitHub account.
• You need the link to stay up longer than 30 days. BrewPage content is deleted after at most 30 days, so a snippet that should stay up longer belongs in a gist under your account.

Publish on BrewPage in three steps

1. 1Open the editor on the homepage. Paste HTML or Markdown, or drop a .html or .md file. For a site with its own CSS, JavaScript and images, drop the whole folder or a .zip.
2. 2Choose who can find it. Public, the default, can appear in the gallery and in search; Private gives an unlisted address. Add a password if readers should enter one, and pick how many days the page stays online, up to 30.
3. 3Press Publish, copy the link and keep the owner token: it is what lets you replace or delete the page later.

Scripts and agents can skip the editor. This request publishes an HTML file for 15 days and returns the link and owner token as JSON:

Publish page.html with curl

curl -X POST "https://brewpage.app/api/html?ttl=15" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/html" \
  --data-binary @page.html

Publish a ZIP of a static site

curl -X POST "https://brewpage.app/api/sites?ttl=15" \
  -F "archive=@site.zip"

The site opens at the file named by the entry parameter, else a root index.html, else the shallowest HTML file. The full reference is on the API page and in llms-full.txt.

What to know before you switch

Lifetime

Content expires within 30 days: you pick 1 to 30 days, and the editor suggests 30 for public pages. Expired content is deleted for good. Updating a page keeps its original expiry; publish again to start a new period.

Attribution

Published pages show a small BrewPage badge.

Domain

No custom domains. Pages live on brewpage.app or a BrewPage subdomain.

Visibility

Public pages without a password may be listed and indexed. An unlisted address is not secret: anyone with the link can open it. Use a password when readers should have to enter one.

Ownership

No accounts: the owner token is the only way to update or delete. Keep it somewhere safe.

GitHub Gist alternative — FAQ

Sources

Gist facts were checked in October 2026. They may have changed since; GitHub's own documentation is authoritative.

• Creating gists: public and secret gists, Git repositories, embedding.
• REST API endpoints for gists: sign-in requirement and the gist scope.
• gh gist create and the GitHub MCP server: gist tools for the command line and agents.
• Plain-text HTML: response headers of the raw file of a public HTML gist (content-type: text/plain), and the rendered Markdown of a public .md gist, both observed in October 2026.
• Introducing gisthost.github.io (Simon Willison): third-party viewers for HTML gists.

BrewPage facts come from the current API reference and llms-full.txt.

Related pages