What is the fastest way to publish an HTML folder from the command line?

For a public page, `surge ./dist` is about as short as it gets. For something that should not be public, a single POST to a report destination is the same number of keystrokes and gives you access control, revision history and comments on the output.

Can I password-protect a surge deployment?

Surge has offered password protection on paid plans, but a shared password is not identity: it travels with the link, it cannot be revoked for one person, and it leaves no record of who opened the page. For internal reports, per-person or per-domain access is the thing to look for.

Does surge keep old versions of a deployment?

No. A deploy replaces what was at that domain. If you need to answer 'what did last week's report say', you need a destination that appends revisions rather than overwriting.

What should CI use to publish a build report?

Anything that takes a token and a file. A POST to /api/v1/reports returns a stable id; PATCH that id on later runs so the URL in your README never changes while every past run stays diffable.

Surge.sh alternatives

npm i -g surge && surge ./dist is one of the great small tools: a folder becomes a URL in about eight seconds, free, no dashboard, no project setup. If you are shipping a static demo to the public internet, it still holds up.

The friction shows up the moment the folder contains numbers rather than a landing page.

Where it stops

Public is the default and mostly the only mode. Password protection exists on paid tiers, and a shared password is not identity — it is forwarded with the link, cannot be revoked per person, and tells you nothing about who opened the file.
A deploy overwrites. No revision history, no diff between this run and last Tuesday's.
No review layer. Whatever the reader thinks about the third chart arrives in Slack, detached from the chart.
No per-artifact identity. One domain, whatever was last pushed to it. Publishing 40 nightly reports means 40 domains you now maintain.

The shortlist

1. Comma — the same one command, with access control behind it

Publishing stays a single call, from the same terminal or the same CI step:

curl -X POST https://commareports.com/api/v1/reports \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COMMA_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "$(jq -n --arg h "$(cat dist/report.html)" \
        '{title:"Nightly report", html:$h, visibility:"team"}')"

Differences that matter for a report rather than a site: visibility per report (private / team / email domain / any signed-in user / link), revisions appended at one stable id, and anchored comment threads on the rendered output. Multi-file output uploads as a zip bundle so relative asset paths keep working.

Agents get the same surface: a scoped token works over REST and MCP, so Claude Code or Cursor can publish and reply to comments without a browser.

Not for: hosting a site with routing, redirects or a custom domain per project. That is what surge and Netlify are good at, and this page is not trying to replace them.

Pricing: Free — unlimited reports, viewers, commenters and revisions.

Publishing from CI →

2. Netlify Drop / Netlify CLI — a real platform behind the same gesture

netlify deploy is the direct peer with more product behind it: deploy previews, redirects, functions, custom domains. Public by default; access control is a paid platform feature. See Netlify Drop alternatives.

3. Cloudflare Pages + Access — free hosting, real SSO in front

wrangler pages deploy ./dist plus an Access policy gets you genuinely gated static content at no cost at small scale. It is also a project, a policy and an identity provider to maintain. See Cloudflare Access alternatives.

4. GitHub Pages — when the HTML belongs to the repo

Versioned by git, free, public off Enterprise. Good for docs that ship with a project, awkward for a per-run artifact. See GitHub Pages alternatives.

At a glance

Tool	One command	Access model	Versions	Comments
Comma	Yes	Identity, 5 levels	Yes	Yes
surge.sh	Yes	Public / shared password	No	No
Netlify CLI	Yes	Platform tiers	Deploys	No
Cloudflare Pages	Yes	SSO via Access	Deploys	No
GitHub Pages	Via git	Enterprise only	Via git	No

Checked September 2026. Verify current plans before committing.

How to choose

Public static demo, throwaway? Keep surge. It is still the fastest.
A real site with domains and redirects? Netlify or Cloudflare Pages.
An internal artifact people respond to? That is not hosting, it is publishing plus a review surface.