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Nurman Tri Gumelar
Nurman Tri Gumelar

Posted on Originally published at devs.li

Free Custom Domain for Your Student Portfolio & Side Projects (GitHub Pages, Netlify & Render)

#showdev #productivity #webdev #beginners

When building a developer portfolio, capstone project, or personal blog, nothing hurts first impressions quite like a long, clunky URL like user123.github.io/my-portfolio or project-123abc45.onrender.com.

Buying a .com or .dev domain usually costs $12 to $20/year per project. If you are a student, recent bootcamp grad, or indie developer juggling 3–5 side projects, those domain fees add up fast.

Here is how you can claim a 100% free, fast, and permanent custom subdomain (like yourname.devs.li) with instant global Anycast DNS propagation.

⚡ The Solution: DEVS.LI

DEVS.LI is a free developer infrastructure platform that provides custom subdomains for open-source creators, students, and hobby projects.

Key Benefits:

  • Zero Cost Forever: No credit card required, no renewal surprises.
  • Instant Global Anycast DNS: Backed by DigitalOcean Anycast nameservers (sub-second propagation).
  • Supports All DNS Records: CNAME, A (IPv4), AAAA (IPv6), and TXT (for verification).
  • Works with Any Host: GitHub Pages, Vercel, Netlify, Render, Railway, Cloudflare Pages, or self-hosted Raspberry Pi/VPS.

🛠️ Step-by-Step Setup Guide

1. For GitHub Pages

  1. Go to DEVS.LI and create a free account.
  2. Click Claim Subdomain, enter your preferred name (e.g., alex-dev), choose CNAME, and enter yourusername.github.io as the target.
  3. Open your repository on GitHub → Settings → Pages → Custom domain.
  4. Enter alex-dev.devs.li and click Save.
  5. Once DNS resolves, check Enforce HTTPS. Done!

📖 Full guide: DEVS.LI for GitHub Pages

2. For Netlify Sites

  1. Claim your subdomain on DEVS.LI with a CNAME pointing to your Netlify site URL (e.g., my-portfolio.netlify.app).
  2. In your Netlify Site dashboard, go to Site configuration → Domain management → Custom domains.
  3. Add yourname.devs.li. Netlify will detect the CNAME and provision a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate automatically.

📖 Full guide: DEVS.LI for Netlify

3. For Render.com Web Services & Backends

  1. In your Render Web Service or Static Site, navigate to Settings → Custom Domains.
  2. Click Add Custom Domain and enter yourname.devs.li.
  3. In DEVS.LI, add a CNAME record pointing to the onrender.com routing target provided by Render.
  4. Render will verify DNS and issue a free TLS certificate in seconds.

📖 Full guide: DEVS.LI for Render

🔍 Free Developer Tool: Instant DNS Lookup

Need to check if your DNS records have propagated globally? You can use the free online tool at:
👉 DEVS.LI DNS Lookup Tool

It checks A, CNAME, TXT, and MX records in real-time with latency benchmarks.

🚀 Get Started

Claim your custom developer subdomain today at https://devs.li.

Have questions or need help pointing your records? Drop a comment below!

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