Hugo on Cloudflare Pages

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Cloudflare Pages is an excellent platform for hosting static websites, making it a perfect fit for Hugo projects.

Why Cloudflare Pages?

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Advantages

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• Free hosting for personal projects
• Global CDN for fast loading worldwide
• Automatic SSL for out-of-the-box security
• Git integration for automatic deployments from GitHub/GitLab
• Custom domains support
• Edge functions for serverless computing at the edge

Prerequisites

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Before you begin, make sure you have:

• A Hugo project ready for deployment
• A Cloudflare account (the free plan is sufficient)
• A Git repository (GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket)

Step-by-Step: Deployment

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1. Prepare your Hugo project

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# Check if the project builds locally
hugo server

# Create a production version
hugo --minify

2. Push to Git

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# Initialize the repository (if it doesn't exist yet)
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial Hugo site"

# Connect to GitHub
git remote add origin https://github.com/username/your-hugo-site.git
git push -u origin main

3. Configure Cloudflare Pages

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1. Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard.
2. Navigate to the “Pages” section.
3. Click “Create a project”.
4. Select “Connect to Git”.
5. Authorize access to your repository.
6. Choose the repository with your Hugo project.

4. Build settings

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Build command: hugo --minify
Build output directory: public
Root directory: /

5. Environment variables

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Add environment variables in the project settings:

HUGO_VERSION=0.120.0
NODE_VERSION=18

Advanced Configuration

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Custom domain

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1. Go to “Custom domains”.
2. Click “Set up a custom domain”.
3. Enter your domain name.
4. Configure the DNS records according to the instructions.

Automatic deployments

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Cloudflare Pages automatically builds and deploys your site with every push to the main branch:

# Every change automatically triggers a new deployment
git add .
git commit -m "Update content"
git push origin main

Preview deployments

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Branches other than the main one create preview deployments:

# Create a preview branch
git checkout -b feature/new-post
git add .
git commit -m "Add new blog post"
git push origin feature/new-post

Troubleshooting

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Common issues

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Problem: Build fails with a Hugo version error. Solution: Set the HUGO_VERSION environment variable to the correct version.

Problem: 404 error after deployment. Solution: Check if the baseURL in your config.toml is correct.

Problem: CSS/JS not loading. Solution: Ensure you are using relative paths or the correct baseURL.

Build logs

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Check the logs in the “Deployments” section for detailed error information.

Best Practices

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1. Use Hugo modules for better dependency management.
2. Minify assets for better performance.
3. Test locally before pushing to production.
4. Use preview deployments to review changes.
5. Configure a 404 page for a better user experience.

Monitoring and Analytics

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Cloudflare offers built-in monitoring tools:

• Analytics for visitor statistics.
• Speed insights for performance metrics.
• Security events for security monitoring.

Summary

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Cloudflare Pages is an ideal platform for Hugo projects—it’s free, fast and easy to configure. The integration with Git makes the deployment process fully automated.

Benefits

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• Free hosting with a global CDN
• Automatic SSL and security
• Zero-config deployment for Hugo
• Preview environments for every branch
• Custom domains and DNS management

Cloudflare Pages is an a great choice for both personal and commercial projects!