Hosting your own website

Purpose

If you already have a designer, a template you like, or a site built with React, Vite, Hugo, Astro, or plain HTML, you don't have to rebuild it in the Website Builder. Upload the finished files and we host them for you at your conference's own web address.

When you use it

Choose Upload my own site when you have a completed static website. Stay with the Website Builder if you'd rather build in the browser without any tooling — it needs no build step and no files.

You can switch between the two at any time. Switching never deletes the other one's work, so you can build a site here, upload one to compare, and go back.

What "static" means

We serve your files exactly as they are. That covers everything a browser can run on its own: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, fonts, and video.

What it does not cover is code that needs a server — PHP, a Node or Python backend, Next.js server rendering, or your own API routes. Those files can be in the upload, but they will never execute.

A compiled React app is not server code. npm run build turns it into exactly the static files described above, which is why Vite, Create React App, Astro, and Hugo sites all work.

Your two addresses

Publishing an uploaded site gives your conference two addresses, and they do different jobs:

• Your website — your-slug.site.airballoon.ai — the site you uploaded.
• Your conference pages — /c/your-slug/... — submissions, registration, schedule, and announcements. These stay with us because they need to sign people in and read your conference data, which a static file cannot do.

Both work at the same time. The one thing you must do is link your conference pages from your site's navigation — otherwise visitors reach your beautiful homepage and have no way to submit a paper.

Which site does /c/your-slug open?

Your conference also has a built-in website-builder site at /c/your-slug. Once you publish an upload, that address forwards to your uploaded website — the uploaded site becomes your public homepage automatically.

If you would rather keep the builder site public while an upload is staged, use Which website do visitors see? in the Website tab to switch back. Nothing is deleted either way; the switch is reversible at any time. To open the builder site while your uploaded one is public, add ?site=builder to the address.

In this section

• Uploading your site — how to produce the ZIP and what happens after you upload it
• Versions and rollback — publishing, going back, and unpublishing
• Limits and troubleshooting — size limits and how to fix a blank page