AWS Static Website Hosting with S3 and CloudFront

Kaustav Dey

Completed work

Cloud Security Engineer

AWS Cloudfront

GitHub

Terraform

IT Infrastructure

AWS Static Website Hosting with S3 + CloudFront

Host a secure, scalable, and fast static website using AWS S3 and CloudFront

Overview

This project demonstrates how to host a static frontend website using Amazon S3 for storage and CloudFront as the global content delivery network (CDN). The website includes HTTPS support, versioned deployments, and optional custom domain configuration.

Tech Stack

AWS S3 – Object storage to host static website files

AWS CloudFront – CDN to cache and serve content globally with HTTPS

AWS Route 53 (optional) – For custom domain + SSL

Terraform (optional) – For infrastructure automation

GitHub – Version control

Architecture Diagram

Project Structure


project-root/
├── site/ # Your static files (HTML, CSS, JS)
├── terraform/ # Terraform files (optional IaC)
├── screenshots/ # Demo screenshots
├── .gitignore
└── README.md

Setup Instructions

Option 1: Manual Deployment (AWS Console)

Create S3 Bucket

Name: your-site-name

Uncheck “Block All Public Access”

Enable Static Website Hosting

Note the endpoint URL

Upload Files

Go to “Objects” → “Upload” your index.html, CSS, JS files

Set Bucket Policy

Create CloudFront Distribution

Origin Domain: S3 static site endpoint (e.g., your-site-name.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com)

Set default root object: index.html

Optional: Add custom domain + SSL (from ACM)

Option 2: Deploy Using Terraform (Optional)

Automate everything using Infrastructure as Code

cd terraform/
terraform init
terraform apply

Custom Domain with HTTPS (Optional)

Buy/manage domain in Route 53

Issue SSL Certificate via ACM (in us-east-1)

Link domain + SSL to CloudFront

Add DNS A/AAAA records in Route 53

Screenshots

#The S3 Bucket

Useful AWS CLI Commands

# Upload static site files to S3
aws s3 sync ./site s3://your-bucket-name --acl public-read

# Invalidate CloudFront cache
aws cloudfront create-invalidation \
  --distribution-id YOUR_DISTRIBUTION_ID \
  --paths "/*"

Author

Kaustav Dey

GitHub: @KaustavDey357

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/KaustavDey357

Portfolio: KaustavDey357.github.io

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Completed work

Posted May 18, 2025

Hosted a static website using AWS S3 and CloudFront with HTTPS support.

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