Home / Compare / htmldrop vs GitHub Gist
A gist is great for sharing a snippet — but it shows your HTML as source code, not a live page. htmldrop serves the same file as a rendered page at a real URL: drag it in, copy the link, no account and no raw-HTML workarounds.
Try htmldrop free — no signup| htmldrop | GitHub Gist | |
|---|---|---|
| Renders HTML as a live page | Yes | Shows source — needs a workaround |
| Real shareable page URL | Yes — its own slug | Gist / raw URL, not hosting |
| Account required | No — anonymous drops | GitHub account |
| Markdown rendered to a page | Yes | Rendered as a gist, not your own page |
| Folder / .zip / built SPA | Yes | Single files |
| Password-protect a link | Yes — from $5/mo | No |
| Custom domain | Yes — from $10/mo | No |
| Best for | A live page at a URL | Sharing code snippets |
GitHub Gist behavior and features are theirs and can change — check gist.github.com for current specifics.
You want people to see the page, not read its source — a demo, a one-off landing page, a rendered Markdown doc, an AI-generated page. Drag the file in and send a real URL that just works, no GitHub login and no htmlpreview detours.
You're sharing a code snippet as code — for others to read, copy, comment on, or fork inside GitHub. That's what gists are for; htmldrop is for when you need the rendered result at its own URL instead.
Gists are a snippet-sharing tool, and everything about them follows from that: a gist page shows your file as syntax-highlighted source, with revisions, comments, and forks around it. There's no first-party "serve this as a page" mode, and the raw URL doesn't fill the gap — GitHub returns raw files as plain text with content sniffing disabled, so a browser dutifully shows you the markup instead of running it.
That's why the folklore fix is a third-party wrapper: paste the gist's raw URL into something like htmlpreview.github.io and it fetches the file and re-serves it so a browser will render it. It works, mostly, until a relative path or a stricter header gets in the way — and the link you end up sharing is a long URL pointing at somebody else's proxy pointing at your gist. htmldrop removes the indirection: the file is the page, served at its own slug. If all you want is to look at the result, previewing an HTML file online covers the short version.
Gists are free, and there's no plan to compare against — if a snippet in a free gist does the job, use a gist. htmldrop is free where it counts too: anonymous drops need no account (up to 2 MB, live for 7 days), and a free account keeps 3 drops at 10 MB each. Paid tiers are Plus $12/mo (or $99/yr) buys permanence, your own custom domain, password protection, and version history; Business $49/mo raises uploads to 500 MB and adds team features.
So the money question is narrow: you pay when you want the page to stay up forever, sit behind a password, live on your own domain, or weigh more than a snippet ever would — a built SPA, a folder of assets, a dashboard export. GitHub's own product for actual page hosting is Pages, not Gist, which is a different comparison: see htmldrop vs GitHub Pages.
These aren't mutually exclusive, and the combination is genuinely good. Leave the source in a gist where it can be read, revised, forked, and commented on, then drop the same file on htmldrop and put that URL wherever you actually want people to see it — the issue thread, the Slack message, the email to a client. One link for the code, one for the result, no proxy in between. Sharing an HTML file and getting a URL for an HTML file both take about a minute.
Moving is just as cheap, because nothing here is proprietary. Download the file from the gist (or use the copy on your disk), drag it onto htmldrop.app, and you're done; multi-file bundles and folders need a free account, and relative links between them keep working exactly as they did locally.
A secret gist is unlisted rather than locked: GitHub doesn't surface it in search, but anyone holding the URL can open it. htmldrop's unguessable slugs behave the same way, so the real difference is what sits on top — drops are not indexed by search engines unless you opt in, and paid plans add a genuine password gate, Argon2id-hashed with per-drop signed cookies. That's the line between "hard to stumble across" and "you need the password," which matters once the page is a client draft rather than a snippet.
The other thing a gist can't do is publish itself from a conversation. htmldrop's hosted MCP server at https://htmldrop.app/mcp signs in through your browser with OAuth — no API keys to create or store — so Claude, Cursor, or Cline can push a page live and return the URL in one tool call. See sharing a Claude artifact or publishing HTML from Claude Code.
Drag an .html or .md file onto htmldrop.app and copy the URL — rendered, no install, no account. Prefer scripts or agents? Use the REST API or the MCP server, including publishing straight from an AI assistant. Anonymous drops are free (up to 2 MB, live 7 days); paid plans from $5/mo add passwords, custom domains (from $10/mo), and more storage.
Anonymous, no email, no credit card. In seconds you'll have a real, rendered link to send anywhere.
Try it freeNot on its own. A gist displays the HTML source code, not a rendered page — to actually view it you need a third-party workaround like htmlpreview.github.io or the raw URL, which isn't a real hosting URL. htmldrop serves the file as a live rendered page at its own URL instead.
htmldrop. Instead of a gist that shows source, drag the .html file onto htmldrop.app and get a live, rendered page at a real shareable URL — no GitHub account, no raw-HTML tricks. It also renders Markdown and can serve a whole folder or built SPA.
No account of any kind. Anonymous drops are live for 7 days (up to 2 MB) with no signup. A free account keeps drops longer; paid plans from $5/mo add passwords, custom domains, and more storage.
GitHub returns raw gist files as plain text with content sniffing disabled, so the browser shows the markup rather than running it. That is why people route raw URLs through third-party wrappers like htmlpreview.github.io. A drop skips the indirection — the file is served as the page at its own URL.
Yes, and it's a good pairing. Leave the source in the gist for reading, revisions, and comments, then drop the same file on htmldrop and share that URL wherever people need to see the result. One link for the code, one for the page.
A secret gist is unlisted rather than locked: GitHub doesn't surface it in search, but anyone with the URL can open it. htmldrop's unguessable slugs work the same way, with two additions — drops are not indexed by search engines unless you opt in, and paid plans add a real password gate, Argon2id-hashed with per-drop signed cookies.
Yes. The hosted MCP server at https://htmldrop.app/mcp signs in through your browser with OAuth — no API keys — so Claude, Cursor, or Cline can publish an HTML or Markdown page and return the live URL in one tool call.